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While the future staus of Boston-Skegness is now with ORR, the S&C is likely to generate even more controversy
It is always embarrassing for a hard nosed column like this is to be exposed as naïvely optimistic. But it happens.
Back in 1999, imported coal traffic between Hunterston in Scotland and the Yorkshire power stations began building up and soon EWS had a steady flow of Class 60 hauled coal hoppers running over the Settle & Carlisle.
EWS could do this because Railtrack had done something very silly. When track access was being negotiated it gave EWS a go-anywhere contract with a high fixed charge and low variable charges.
This meant that there was very little linkage between track wear and track access charges, which was bad news for the S&C which had been a Regional Railways route before privatisation. As a result it was maintained for Sprinter diesel multiple unit traffic plus diverted loco-hauled services.
Subjected to a high axle-load pounding, the track deteriorated rapidly, the odd culvert collapsed and EWS Chief Executive Ed Burkhardt fulminated against British Rail's inadequate maintenance. Subsequently around £60 million was spent on the route, which is where the naïve optimism comes in.
I assumed that the money had been spent on upgrading the infrastrucrture to take the new coal flows. Stupid boy!
All the £60 million did was repair the damage caused by the coal traffic and restore the S&C to the existing specification – namely DMUs plus diversionary loco-hauled trains. But the coal trains have kept on rolling and Mr Miles tells me that currently there are 26 Temporary Speed Restrictions in force; 20 on the up line and six on the down line.
Some of these are differential restrictions, 60mph for DMUs and 30mph for heavy freights. But others are as low as 20mph.
What I also forgot was that while £60 million sounded a worthwhile sum in five years ago, the boiling frogs meant that it didn't buy much. Network Rail renewed th track using steel sleepers. And the steel sleepers were laid on the existing ballast with the top few inches scarified.
Now being the the resident old fart, I reckon steel sleepers are, in general, a snare and delusion on a modern high speed railway, even though Network Rail is going to lay them, experiementally, on 125 mile/h sections of the East Coast Main Line. Apart from the lack of weight, they are blighters to tamp because of the risk of creating voids underneath.
Thus on the S&C, while the renewals were certainly adequate for the specification, they are not up to the increasing Anglo-Scottish coal traffic. This has grown from 1 million tonnes in 2000 to 5 million last year.
As the Rail Freight Group points out, running via the ECML adds 100 miles to the journey and creates congestion in Scotland . RFG wants the Glasgow & South Western (GSW) and the S&C to become a 24 hour freight railway. More capacity and longer trains is the call.
Network Rail's response has been to set up a planning exercise to evaluate the impact of the S&C's current TSR's and whether journey times need to be extended to allow for them. This would, of course, reduce capacity just when the freight operators want more.
Over the next five years Network Rail is looking to spend £58 million to eliminate the current TSR's. But this will perpetuate the S&C as a route to Regional Railways track standards carrying intensive coal traffic. And according to Informed Sources some of the earthworks are now starting to suffer.
At which point can I introduce a philosophical issue? Why are the freight operators cutting each other's throats to haul coal from Scotland to Yorkshire when they have a captive customer?
Ed Burckhardt warned of exactly this when he challenged the concept of competition on rail after EWS was formed. The real compeition is the lorry and the lorry can't compete on coal traffic.
So why is the railway encouraging the coal importers to save pence per tonne, by taking the largest bulk carriers into Hunterston, at the cost of wrecking the S&C? I doubt that the track access charges paid by the freight operators covers the infrastructure damage.
Indeed, when he was in charge of freight at Railtrack Robin Gisby mooted building a 35 tonne axle load heavy haul line from Imnmingham to the Yorkshire power stations. Even with free access, he reckoned it would still be cheaper than maintaining the existing routes from Scotland .
Obviously Scottish coal is ideal business for rail freight – high tonnages, long distances – but it ought to pay its way. Ideally, from the operators' point of view, the rates offered should be just below the point where running smaller bulk carriers into Immingham is a cheaper option.
Meanwhile, on Boston-Skegness, consultation on Network Rail's proposed G1 Network Change closed on September 12. If accepted by the Office of Rail Regulation, the change would ban freight trains from the route and allow a maximum of 20 locomotive hauled passenger trains a year subject to a 35mile/h speed limit.
This controversial issue has exposed Network Rail's sneaky beaky side. Not only was the letter inviting comments on the change hard to find on the NR web site but the critical Appendix A, which provided the detailed specification of the scheme, was not attached.
From the start of this year, Network Rail was reqwuired to publish details of network change proposals, rather than sending them only to affected and interested parties. But Network Rail was allowed to restrict publication of information where it was considered commercially confidential.
Consultees on Boston-Skegness were told that Appensix A was covered by commercial confidentiality. But this was not given as the reason for its absence from the web site.
Following complaints about the treatment of the Network change, ORR and Network Rail have agreed that the relevant section of the website now says, ‘Appendices to each Network Change are sent to industry consultees. Consideration will be given to a request for these appendices, if made in writing to networkcode@networkrail.co.uk'.
But, come on, what could be commercially confidential in the case of Boston-Skegness - a highly subsidised line run by a state-funded not-for-profit company limited by guarantee? So I was going to be naughty and publish the costs in Appendix A. But when I cut and pasted it I saw that Network Rail was not so sneaky-beaky after all.
They had left the ‘track changes' facility in Word active. So we now know what they were thinking as well as the official versions.
Option 1 – is the proposed Network Change.
Estimated cost is £500,000, with £3000 a year additional income from loco-hauled trains. But the ‘track changes' lead-up is more revealing.
It reads: ‘No additional costs identified. We believe this will affect the Charter Train companies – we have to prove we've looked at the effect on them. We need to model the effects on their services and then prove why spending vast sums of money to remove such effects would not be a good way to spend the industry's money. Also consider possible EWS future use'.
Option 2, which is to bring forward renewals to allow loco-hauled and light locomotive operations from May 2009, still with some TSRs, is officially costed at £14million over three years. Once again the background noise is informative.
‘Starting when?' it asks. It continues ‘An ongoing £1.5m pa (for maintenance)? How does this compare to current spend on maintenance? We need to prove why maintaining renewed track in the future will cost more than maintaining the current old stuff which we haven't shown a maintenance cost against'.
Well there's a thought. And maintaining jointed track properly, note the properly, such as greasing fish plates in the spring ready for a hot summer, is labour intensive.
Option 3 would bring forward renewals to allow unrestricted loco-hauled and light locomotive operations from the end of 2010/11. This is costed at £24.5 million over five years, then £1.5 million pa, with a reference to the comment under option 2.
Finally, Option 4 is to do nothing and exclude locomotives permanently. This generates no extra revenue and no extra costs. It is described as the ‘strongest economic option'.
Readers may ponder what these revelations mean for Community Railways. Operating costs may be negligible, but the future depends on jointed track going on forever – like those Victorian mechanical interlockings.