Rail Professional opinion Katie Silvester, editor Another country
Arriva has bought open access operator Grand Central (see page 11). Arriva, itself, of course, was acquired by Deutsche Bahn in 2010. The German state railway now owns franchises and concessions for Chiltern, Arriva Trains Wales, CrossCountry, Tyne and Wear Metro and London Overground. It also owns our biggest freight operator DB
Schenker (see pages 18-21). So should we be worried about an increasing chunk of our railway operations being
in the hands of a foreign government? Not necessarily. All of the Arriva-owned Tocs came mid-table in the most recent (Spring 2011) National Passenger Survey. So passengers are fairly happy with the service they are getting. That’s not necessarily a surprise, though. They were well run before the Deutsche Bahn takeover and the additional input of expertise from executives used to running a railway system the size of Germany’s can’t have hurt. And Arriva’s enthusiasm for open access routes may win it some brownie points – it is also searching for new opportunities through its other open access interest Alliance Rail. Open access services can bring a real value-added element to our railways, offering new rail routes without receiving any public subsidy. Perhaps the question should be whether it’s really right for foreign governments to
be making money from our railways – which are, after all, subsidised by UK taxpayers – regardless of whether or not they can provide a good service. I would suggest it’s not all that different to any other shareholders making profits from railway franchises. Even British-headquarted transport groups have shareholders in other countries, such as Spain’s Cosmen family, who own a chunk of National Express. And of course the concession for HS1 is owned by a consortium led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. The truth of the matter is that shareholders – whether they be governments,
investment funds or private individuals – are going to make money from our railways under the current system. Is that justifiable when the railways are subsidised by taxpayers? Under some circumstances, it probably is justifiable; under others, less so. The Chiltern Railways model where, thanks to a long franchise, private investment has paid for a new rail link and track upgrades to be put in place, is the sort of thing that was envisaged when our railways were privatised. Even if it means that, in this instance, some of the subsequent farebox receipts head straight for the German treasury. The East Coast debacle, where two operators walked away from their franchise
agreement having bid too high, was definitely not an intended consequence of privatisation. The current situation, where a state-owned operator is running the East Coast franchise with the profits coming back to our (yes, the UK) government, seems to be working quite well. But when the East Coast franchise is re-let, likely bidders will include Arriva (German state railway), Abellio (Dutch state railway), Keolis (French state railway and Renfe (Spanish state railway). If one of them wins, premiums will still be paid to our government, but some of the profits will then be going to the government of another European country. In order for that to really make sense, the winner would have to put in a pretty spectacular bid and be able to follow through with it. Because what we now have in the East Coast is a benchmark for how successfully a railway can be run by our own government. And you can bet that interest groups that would rather see the railway re-nationalised will be comparing Directly Operated Railways’ figures quite carefully with those of the next franchise holder.
PAGE 4 DECEMBER 2011
News in brief
Drivers begin industrial action in Scotland
Aslef members in Scotland are refusing to work on rest days because of an alleged shortage of train drivers. The union claims drivers are working ‘institutional overtime’ because First ScotRail employs 50 fewer drivers than needed. ScotRail says extra shift work is due to service growth and it is training 70 new drivers.
Twitter follower gets cab ride
C2C rewarded its 1,000th follower on Twitter with a cab ride. Sarah Gibney, from Benfleet, said: ‘The cab ride with a C2C driver was really exciting. It was great to see my familiar daily journey from a different vantage point – the panoramic view coming into London was stunning. It was fascinating to see the rail infrastructure.’
Signal boxes to be preserved
Network Rail has been working on a strategy to ensure that signal boxes with heritage status will be preserved when most of them are taken out of use by the consolidation of signalling into 14 regional control centres. Network Rail has met with the National Railway Museum, English Heritage, Historic Scotland and the Railway Heritage Trust to discuss the signal boxes’ future.
Coalition looks to reduce red tape
Nearly 200 rail transport regulations have been placed on the Red Tape Challenge website – a government site aimed at cutting bureaucracy – for public consultation. Among the regulations that could be simplified are the National Rail Conditions of Carriage.
Research body launched
The Rail Research UK Association has been officially launched in London, following an unofficial start last year. UK universities and the rail industry will be working together on research projects, using online resources.
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