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The Department for Transport's Progress Report shows the 10 Year Plan advancing expensively to the rear
That the Government now has low expectations of the railways was emphaised by the Progress Report on the 10 Year Transport Plan published on 17 December 2002. The original plan took effect from April 2001.
Having reiterated the Plan's aspirations to ‘accommodate and promote future growth in the use of the railways' the ‘Strategy' section of the progress report comments: ‘We recognise that first and foremost people want a railway that is reliable and safe, that offers a better quality of service to its customers. Therefore our primary focus is in bringing performance back up to acceptable standards, and on restoring stability and confidence in the industry. The other major priority is to secure a more cost effective rail industry'.
And as this month's lead item shows, the industry is going to become increasingly cost-ineffective before, hopefully, the management at Network Rail gets a grip. I was going to say ‘new' management, but it's the old-railway managers and engineers on which everything depends. So the Government's strategy seems to be ‘if we can't stop the railways being unfeasibly expensive, at least we can try to make them run better by the next election'.
There are signs of realism in places. On the subject of Mk 1 stock replacement, the progress report comments that ‘some' of the replacement vehicles ‘will not be able to enter service until the major power supply upgrade for the network south of the Thames is completed'.
Note the unambiguous ‘will not'. This is, I suspect, the first official recognition of the scale of the problem which you read about in this column just over a year ago.
But even then, the list of not-so-great expectations (box) still refers to ‘by 2005' for the upgrade. Optimists might go for December 31 that year.
Progress on increasing capacity instances such ‘major' projects as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the West Coast Route Modernisation and the Chiltern re-doubling (honestly). There are also worrying signs of BFS in the section on the WCRM, where the rising costs are blamed on ‘unrealistic cost estimates by Railtrack'.
Judging by Progress Report, the cost of ‘nearly £10billion' for the WCRM, SRA's new strategy for the route seems to have been accepted as reasonable by the DfT. I won't bore you with a restatement of my views, other than to say that if that is the current going rate, First Group's proposal to build a brand new high speed line to the West Country is probably a cheaper option than the already overdue Great Western Main Line Modernisation.
Expectations by 2005:• significant improvements in punctuality and reliability, with a renewed focus on customers; • the Train Protection Warning System fully installed across the network; • a further significant reduction in incidences of signals passed at danger; • section 1 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in operation; • on the West Coast Main Line, there will be four trains per hour between London and Birmingham, compared to the current two, and the journey time between London and Manchester will be cut by half an hour; • some 2,800 new rolling stock brought into service since the start of the Plan (representing over a quarter of the current fleet), and enabling longer trains, improved quality and safety, and the withdrawal of all remaining ‘slam-door' stock; • a major upgrade of the track power supply in the South East, improving reliability and enabling optimal use of modern rolling stock; • initial improvements to the timetable arising from the SRA's Capacity Utilisation Policy; and • the National Rail Academy and Rail Sector Skills Council established and producing demonstrable improvements in training and skills levels within the rail industry
Source: DfT |
Which conveniently brings us to funding.
Here the detailed expenditure for Railways is hedged with Government health warnings. For example, the figures for 2006/07 and beyond ‘represent current allocations, but may be subject to revision in the light of future information'. With a degree of understatement, DfT says ‘It is clear that changes in the phasing of private investment will be necessary following the replacement of Railtrack by Network Rail and a rise in operations spend'. How true
As the chart shows, public expenditure and private investment in the railways is set to peak in the coming year. Note that ‘Public Resource' covers subsidies and grants and that to avoid double counting public expenditure which supports private investment is excluded.
Pending a more detailed analysis here – I feel another spreadsheet coming on – this chart should be considered as a profile, rather than a budgetary aid. For example, given the Ford Factor what really counts is not the money but what it buys. Back at the start of the chart in 1991/92 your pound in the ground bought pi-times as much concrete and steel while a pound in the traction and rolling stock factories bought only a two thirds as much.
Finally, what about SRA getting £312 million less over the coming three years than was forecast earlier in 2002?
Everyone seemed to think that this was very exciting, but it barely registered in the figures and had to be highlighted in the DfT press release. When simply paying lawyers, accountants and consultants to set up the London Underground PPP is a ‘drop in the ocean compared to the end result' according to LU Managing Director Paul Godier, £100 million a year is small change in the SRA's budget.