Network Rail is to devolve its operations over nine regional units.
David Higgins, who took over as chief executive just three weeks ago, will devolve Network Rail’s power to nine regional units in a bid to force through efficiency savings worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
The move comes weeks before the submission of the official review of rail costs by Sir Roy McNulty, the former chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority. It is expected to recommend a similar overhaul of Network Rail.
Riiiight. Roll back to 1994 when the rail industry was privatised. Railtrack as it was then was effectively split into seven zones. More, originally, but there was a subsequent merging of the southern and south western, so seven it was. The centre consisted of Railtrack HQ and Safety and Standards.
So how did that pan out, exactly? Well, each zone operated like its own fiefdom with train operators complaining that crossing from one zone to another left them confused about how rules were put into practice. I recall Virgin, for example, expressly complaining that an incident would be handled differently in the Midland Zone to the Western Zone. If I recall correctly, the BTP made similar comments. Oh, what fun we had. I was charged with looking at incident manager training, so pulled together all of the training packages across the business. What did I find? Seven zones with seven different packages of varying quality. Indeed, I discovered that this divergence of practice varied from area to area, let alone region to region – and each one thought that their system was the best. That it was a mess is a matter of historical record.
The reason that Network Rail opted for an autocratic centralised management model was precisely because they had tried the empowerment one and it hadn’t been a shining success. I recall Iain Coucher reading the riot act about the company way shortly after he arrived. Much as I didn’t like the man, he had a point.
So… Here we go again…
Yep, it’s the railway merry-go-round, the same old cunning plans cropping up every time the deckchairs are rearranged at Westminster. If I was running a freight operating company I’d be calling the administrators any day, might as well get it over with early, there’s no way this plan will benefit rail freight. Open access operators should be able to see the writing on the wall too, the message is pretty clear, “piss off with your genuine competition, who said we wanted any of that ?” This is music to the ears of the TOCS who have been after a tight little monopoly with free access to the public purse when things get rough for a long time. Even the consultants who are proposing this don’t seem altogether convinced as they seem to favour the idea of ‘concessions’ ( don’t mention the F word ) so that they can be more easily wound up if things go wrong. Thank god I’m retiring next year.
Yet it is completely inefficient. On our line, it sometimes doesn’t even bother going through and clearing the tracks until after rush hour, when it’s not needed any more.
What do you mean by clearing the tracks exactly ? De-icing maybe ? If so this is precisely when it should be done. Network Rail is certainly not the most efficient organisation on the planet but splitting it up into smaller units won’t cure that, as LR has already explained, vertical integration is flavour of the month again at the moment but as the freight operating companies ( FOCs) are well aware without a national provider for infrastructure and planning, cross company operations will rapidly slide off the agenda. All this is a willful denial on the part of government that the 1994 privatisation was botched and misconceived, there was no reason at all for the multiplicity of companies it created, a privatised BR or at most two or three private passenger companies with a single infrastructure company would have been far better. Add to that the FOCs and a proper level playing field for open access and most of the absurdities of the modern British railway would have been avoided. However that would have required a government with a willingness to let professionals get on with their jobs, not to mention someone in Whitehall with some knowledge of railways and their history, fat chance of either.