Return to Archive -by date - by topic - 2007.
There have been many crucial years for the railways in Britain from the Rainhill Trials onward. Reluctantly leaving what would have happened had Rocket suffered a major failure for another time, we can think of the 1923 Grouping, Nationalisation in 1948, the decision to adopt the 1955 Modernisation plan, Beeching in 1962, Serpell in 198x and the Privatisation White Paper in 1992.
But through all these key decisions, the railway was a corporate entity, with an idea of what the business was about and where it should be going. In short, able to fight its corner.
Not that it necessarily won the fight, especially the last. But, in general the damage was limited and the railway system was able to maintain what its managers saw as progress. Cost cutting, usually, but with the quid pro quo of investment in selected projects.
In 2007 we face what will undoubtedly be a crucial year. We are barely six months away from the publication of the High Level Output Specification (HLOS) in which Government will specify what it wants from the railway in the broad areas of Performance, Safety and Capacity. Published simultaneously, the Statement of Funds Available (SOFA) will say what Government is prepared to pay for these aspirations.
Also published at the same time will be a White paper on the Future of the Railways looking 30 years ahead. July is going to be a very busy month for the Modern Railways team.
As the Chairman of the Office of Rail Regulation, Chris Bolt has pointed out, while the HLOS and SOFA will feed into his Periodic Review of track access charges for the five year Control Period (CP4) starting on 1 April 2009 , the Government cannot take the five years in isolation.
Railways have a long time constant and the funding levels for CP4 will resonate into CP5 and CP6. Thus, it may be necessary to challenge the Chancellor to make the SOFA bigger if the railway is to be able to gear up to meet the nation's needs in the third decade of the century and beyond.
Hence the importance of the White Paper, the contents of which are hinted at in DfT Rail's ‘Vision 2035'. During the years 5 to 10 of the Vision (2012-1017) the aim will be to optimise the use of the current network by ‘reconfiguring' the railway and ‘making the best of what we have'.
From years 15 to 30, say 2021-2035, the policy will change to re-engineering the railway. This is seen as partly about reducing costs through ‘differentiation', for example lower track standards and lighter vehicles on rural routes, but could also include electrification , new high speed lines and double deck trains.
Readers may share our view that this Vision smacks of more bread and scrape for the foreseeable future with the possibility of some stale jam in 15 years' time. If the current Control Period can be characterised as stabilisation and recovery from the collapse of Railtrack, Vision 2035 suggests that CP4, starting in 2009 time, will be focused on consolidation and the critical task of bringing the costs of the railway down to more supportable levels.
And yet, time is not on the railway's side. Now, is the time the industry should be looking to the future and making the case for the investment needed during and beyond CP4 to cope with an uncertain future. But who can speak for the modern railway? Network Rail is up to its ears in the short term trying to match its cost to the likely size of the SOFA. The Train Operating Companies are doing what they are told by DfT Rail, which is run the existing network for less and don't bother your pretty little heads about infrastructure of traction and rolling stock policy.
As a result, decisions are happening by default and in isolation. To take one example, electrification, affects among other aspects of the railwa, traction policy, energy supply and efficiency, capacity and journey times. Yet the official DfT Rail line, backed by Network Rail, is that it is expensive and adds complexity. Fortunately they are more canny north of the Border.
But a continuation of this policy, begun under the previous Secretary of State, of dodging the hard decisions and bodging temporary solutions will catch up with the railway before ‘reconfiguration' can start in 2012. Decision are needed urgently on passenger and freight capacity, traction and rolling stock replacement and electrification. We simply can't wait for Vision 2035.
Without a coherent industry-driven vision, we are left with the only HLOS and the White Paper to plot the way to a better future. The omens are not good. A crucial year indeed.