Return to Archive -by date - by topic - 2002.
If only Ed Burkhardt's vision of a short-line style freight railway for Britain had been realistic; if only Railtrack had appointed an old school Infrastructure Director in 1994; if only all the train builders had been as effective at acceptance and manufacture as Bombardier with the Voyagers; if only Sir Alastair Morton had not frittered away the SRA's critical first years. Without these and all the other ‘if onlies' which litter the railway's recent history we would have an industry going forward and, more important, ready to play its role in the Government's long term transport strategy.
Instead, we have a railway uncertain as to what it should be doing. In many respects it is business as usual. Safety indicators continue to improve. Despite the hiatus in rolling stock investment and delivery and infrastructure enhancement, passenger carryings are at their highest level since 1946. Last year freight increased its share of the UK market by 1%. Heavy Goods Vehicles saw carryings drop back by 1 billion tonne-km. But, rail tonnage was at an historic low and coal made up 50% of carryings – less is being carried further.
With much the same railway carrying record levels of traffic, capacity is under pressure. Yet schemes to increase capacity, for example on the Brighton Line have been put on hold by the failure of the last great concept – Special Purpose Vehicles – to get off the drawing board. And given that similar Private Finance Initiative deals for simple things like schools and hospitals take two years before the earth moving starts, any major SPV initiated now is unlikely to deliver much before five years are out.
Add in the unaffordability of what should be minor schemes, such as the Southampton-West Midlands gauge and capacity upgrade for maritime container traffic – now costed at £1billion – or £7million a mile, and the total unreality of the West Coast Route Modernisation, currently £25million a mile for what should have been a modest renewal and speed upgrade scheme, and it is hard to see how the SRA's bigger, better railway can be achieved, let alone funded.
Which is not good news, given the Government's dithering over what to do about road congestion. John Prescott's vision was that better public transport would lure motorists from their cars and business from its lorries. That is still the assumption in the 10 year transport plan, currently under review.
A better railway, attracting traffic predicates a bigger railway to carry the new business. But if the cost of the bigger railway, to carry only a fraction of road traffic, is more than the cost of adding lanes to motorways, which might be paid for by tolls, then railway investment is that much less attractive to the tax payer and the treasury. Particularly with current projects out of control and subsidies rising.
This whole concept of investing in better public transport to generate modal transfer is, we believe distorting railway policy. Yes, railways are part of the national transport system, but so are the low cost airlines and so are the express coaches. Yet no one suggests that Ryaneasygo's domestic services between London and Scotland should be encouraged because they reduce traffic on the motorways.
Back to basics, then. Railways compete in specific markets, or are subsidised to meet social needs. This is reflected in the Passenger Service Requirements in the franchises. These are aimed at ensuring a minimum service for those without access to private transport, not luring motorists from their cars.
Here we see a basic dichotomy between the imperatives driving train operators and the SRA. The train operators, passenger and freight, need to run a better railway to serve their existing passengers better and win more traffic from existing markets. Or even to avoid losing traffic, as in the threat from the low cost airlines. The SRA is seeking to implement government policy based on well-meaning, but unquantified, targets for growth.
Of course the railway needs to look ahead. Asked to pick out the biggest flaw in the Strategic Plan we would highlight its lack of a coherent long term strategy. But the long term is irrelevant if you don't get the here and now right.
At the sharp end of the railway, the task is, and will remain, much the same that it always has been. Providing safety, economy, reliability, frequency and speed – day in day out. Re-equipment, has, or is, providing the traction and rolling stock to do this. Infrastructure is starting to catch up.
But what is being done about the people? As Gerard Fiennes pointed out, ‘It is a matter of history and of fact. Of great opportunity and great reward, that the performance of a bit of railway, good or bad, stems from the performance of may be one , may be a few, but never more than a few people'.
This is as true today as when he wrote I tried to run a railway 36 years ago. And many of today's ‘few' are coming up for retirement.
If the better railway is to deliver the long term promise of a bigger railway, it needs to be creating tomorrow's managers. Hence the National Railway Academy , with the SRA funding development of the idea to the tune of £500,000. But already there are worrying signs.
According to the SRA, Most respondents to a survey on the subject were in favour of an academy ‘possibly as a web-based learning resource supplemented by a network of Further Education Colleges for face-to-face applications'.
For heaven's sake, hasn't the SRA grasped that a successful railway is all about a wide range of engineering and management disciplines working together, and you don't generate professional togetherness with distance learning.
What is needed is a proper bricks and mortar training centre where managers and engineers can come together and work together on residential courses. And if we wait too long the experienced heads who would run the courses and pass on that experience will have gone.
As we have been saying for some time, the industry's priority is to run the railway properly – as and when political interference allows. And it is people that run the railway.