Deprivatisation of railways

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by BBKing

The interface between the network company and the operating companies needs to be thought out in such a way that the network company has an interest in the trains running reliably and the operating company has an say in the track maintenance. Quite how you do that (bringing wheel and rail together) I really haven't a clue, but the state railway certainly requires a division that actually operates trains, partly to get the insanity of modern signalling practice ended.

True, a State-owned monolith would be a bad thing (BR were better than the current lot at running the Railway, but they certainly weren't perfect).

However, if you get multiple organisations involved, you may end up with a situation like now, where problems are not being solved because the organisations involved are all blaming other organisations. If we can ensure that particular practice is stopped (God knows how). Still, if we do have a system as you describe above, some of the "blame" culture shown today will disappear.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by cjmillsnun

Great Heck was the only accident where the railways had no blame, and that tw*t who fell asleep at the wheel of his car ought to be shot.

I take great exception to that. The blame for the accident should not fall squarely on the shoulders of that **** as you so elequently call him.

Originally Posted by SMHarman

However you can point a finger toward the railways. The French TGV network has a fairly simple cable arrangement around all road bridges. If these cables are snapped (by say a car landing on them) all signal in the area trip to red slowing / stopping trains and preventing or reducing the speed of the collision.

Exactly... what if someone blew a tyre or some other type of crash, the result would have been the same. The Rail authority must take (I believe) the lions share of the blame by failing to ensure the safety of their passengers.

[cjmillsnun]

Originally Posted by Pierre

I take great exception to that. The blame for the accident should not fall squarely on the shoulders of that **** as you so elequently call him.

Pierre THERE are track circuits which did put the signals to RED (Danger in Railway speak), but he had been there literally seconds when the accident happened. The accident was unavoidable as the trains had NO TIME TO STOP. I think it is more up to the Highways Agency to ensure that cars don't leave the motorway on bridges (IE better fencing - catch fencing for example).

How fast can a train brake??? Think about it. It generally takes the space of 4 '4 aspect' signals for a 100 MPH or 125MPH train to stop. As these are spaced approx a mile, that is nearly 4 miles!

[BBKing]

Exactly... what if someone blew a tyre or some other type of crash, the result would have been the same. The Rail authority must take (I believe) the lion's share of the blame by failing to ensure the safety of their passengers

Philosophical question - considering that no transport network since the world began has been able to ensure the safety of their passengers, why should this be expected of GNER/Railtrack in the exceptional circumstances at Great Heck.

When I was at school a lorry went into a schoolmates house, on a blind bend. Should the householder be responsible for inconveniently siting his house where lorries could come off the road and hit it? Ludicrous, but an exact analogy.

The lion's share of responsibility lies where the courts put it, on the driver who fell asleep. Secondarily you could say the people responsible for the design of the M62 bridge. The railway, which was in perfect working order and was there before the motorway, is entirely blameless. It's worth remembering that the collision with the vehicle was very minor, the deaths were the result of the derailed wheels damaging a set of points further up the line directing the express into the oncoming freight train. The exceptional consequences should not blind us to the realisation that this was a simple road traffic acccident caused by driving while unfit to drive.

Having said which, it's worth the Highways Agency conducting an investigation into road/rail overbridge safety, particularly on motorways. Quite what you do I'm unsure, a nice big concrete wall would be good, but practically guaranteed to total the driver, who of course survived Great Heck. How far back you run the wall is an interesting question too, there was a wall at the site of course, but the muppet was already off the road by the start of it.

The railway is entitled to work on the principle that, having taken reasonable steps* to stop objects on the line from killing people in trains, they can operate in safety. They should concentrate on miniming risk arising from the operation of the railway, not from the operation of private motor vehicles.

* fencing, track circuits, tripwires (Severn Tunnel has these) are all designed in part or in whole to keep foreign objects off the railway, or alert the railway to the presence of these. Also the express at Great Heck was composed of modern buckeye-coupled monocoque coaches which generally remain upright and in-line and intact in derailments, and did everything expected of them in the accident (look at the line of intact, upright coaches in the pictures after a 142mph impact).

[cjmillsnun]

One thing most people seem to forget is what happens to road vehicles in a 70MPH motorway pile up. To be frank, deaths could easily be into three figues, yet in Great Heck (a 142MPH impact) there were 10 deaths.

This is a testament to the strength of modern railway coaches, of which the BR Mk3 & MK4 are amoungst the best.

Lets just say (and one cannot get more factual) that there will never be a 100% safe way to get from A-B, but that railways with their numerous and improving systems are safer than most.

One thing I would like to add. The tell-tale wire in the Severn Tunnel is NOT a trip-wire (as in automatically activated by the presence of foreign objects). It is a device that is used to alert signalling staff of an incedent (be it an accident, de-railment or a broken down train or for staff to alert signallers about foreign object)and is tripped by railway staff. It's major function is to put the signals leading into the tunnel to Danger Therefore stopping trains entering the tunnel.

Also the Axle counters are about as reliable as track circuits in the Severn tunnel, needing attention approx once every other month.

[cjmillsnun]

BBKing mentioned provate operators running profitable train routes on a nationalised infrastructure.

This to me defeats the object. Why let private comapnies cream off profits. This could be used by a BR type Govenment board to fund the more social services, and to fund safety improvements. I am all for the idea of leasing rolling stock (in a similar manner to what happens on the Northern Line of London Underground) as long as a strict contract is in force on availablilty and serviceability and that is a drivers (and "BR's") decision as to whether the train is safe. Then newer syle trains (similar to the new Virgin Pendilinos and Voyagers) could be introduced cost effectively. Also BR had initiative of their own (eg they introduced the purple suited helpers at major intercity stations.... Something that was initially removed by both Virgin & GNER upon privatisation - and re-introduced by both after they found their previous decision a mistake Also anyone remember "Silver Standard"?? This was great. For a small fee you had standard class seating but 1st class service.. Cheaper than 1st class and great when you wanted coffee, a meal and a paper from Euston or King's Cross.) I am not saying that BR was perfect - FAR FROM IT. They were a victim of being the Cinderella of Government Spending and some extremely poor management decisions. But they were finally getting it (generally) right when they were privatised, and were doing much better than most (if not all) of the TOCs running today.

IMHO the only sucessful private train company has been M40trains (Chiltern Railways). They have stuck to the culture of safety found in BR(They also have APT and insisted that all their new trains (ordered before Southall) had it fitted. Even though there was only one supplier of the equipment who was ripping them off.) They also benefitted from a recently upgraded line and fairly modern rolling stock anyway, and used sucessful marketing and good management to stay safe & profitable.

great to have such knowledgeable debate in this thread

@cjmillsnun - your point about private companies creaming off profits as their 'fat cats' accumulate bonuses for poor performance, is apt.

I didn't mean by my previous post to imply I was favouring a fully state owned Railway, but I do believe that the 'wheels' side of it should be somehow regulated to be more in favour of the customer. Including the routes which may need subsidising.

[BBKing]

Here's an example - a local PTE, such as in Glasgow, should be able to get their train services run by whoever they choose, the state railway or a private company. After all, Merseyside is doing roughly that under a modification of the existing privatisation where their trains are run by a joint venture between the Dutch Railways and Serco, who run the Docklands Light Railway. Again a bit of privatisation idiocy there, in that foreign state-owned (and presumably state-subsidised) railways are allowed to operate UK passenger trains, but not the UK state-owned railway.

Long-distance Inter-City services should probably be state run, for no other reason than proper through ticketing and connections, and best use of track. However, there has got to be scope for people like Hull Trains who operate a niche service from Kings Cross to Hull (and I believe Cleethorpes/Grimsby) where the main operator GNER isn't interested. Would be a shame to lose them I think.

Chiltern of course benefit from being the only operator of brand new trains on a brand new railway (the so called Total Route Modernisation that replaced pretty much everything in the early 90s). They've also benefitted from the West Coast nightmare by offering a service to Birmingham that, while longer, actually gets there, and is cheaper too. I certainly always use them to get to my parents in Birmingham.

Rolling stock procurement was always a nightmare under BR due to the long memories at the Treasury of the amount of money wasted in the 50s building steam engines and lots of small, early, untested diesels. After that they weren't really allowed to spend what they wanted, we were lucky to get the HST (being a cheap stopgap before widespread electrification that never came).

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by cjmillsnun

One thing I would like to add. The tell-tale wire in the Severn Tunnel is NOT a trip-wire (as in automatically activated by the presence of foreign objects). It is a device that is used to alert signalling staff of an incedent (be it an accident, de-railment or a broken down train or for staff to alert signallers about foreign object)and is tripped by railway staff. It's major function is to put the signals leading into the tunnel to Danger Therefore stopping trains entering the tunnel.

Is this like the pair that run down all LU tube tunnels at shoulder height? The driver touches the pair together gets a little tingling sensation and the signals all go red?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by BBKing

Rolling stock procurement was always a nightmare under BR due to the long memories at the Treasury of the amount of money wasted in the 50s building steam engines and lots of small, early, untested diesels. After that they weren't really allowed to spend what they wanted, we were lucky to get the HST (being a cheap stopgap before widespread electrification that never came).

If I remember what I read in Private Eye correctly, another part of the problem is that for large capital investment projects, the Treasury will give a loan to a state-run organisation. The interest on this loan is supposed to be set slightly higher than the average rate that a bank would use (the idea being that the Bank of England wants more money back than it would get if it merely invested the money in a bank). The problem came because whenever BR wanted money, they would be charged two or three times the average rate.

I should stress though, I read the above in Private Eye over ten years ago, so I could be wrong (the original article could be wrong, or I could be remembering it wrong).

[BBKing]

The Treasury certainly required a return on investment above what seemed reasonable (and different to that applied to roads). 8% is a figure I'm dredging up. This was one of the causes of the astonishingly cheap electrification of the East Coast line, £306m. They did have to cut corners a bit on the overhead wires, which is why you often hear of the lines down on the ECML, as the posts were placed wider apart to get the cost down. Compare the £306m (mid-80s prices admittedly) with the £280m recently quoted to a company that wanted to upgrade the short single track branch from Llandudno Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog for heavier freight traffic. On the whole, infrastructure improvements under privatisation cost about 3 times the price under BR.

I probably have that old Eye somewhere, got 15 years of copies (many of them in a pile by the bed, as my other half will tell you at length).

One of the 'benefits' of privatisation would have been the freedom to borrow as much as the market would lend, or in other words to plunge a national strategic resource into debt, which is more or less what happened.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by BBKing

The Treasury certainly required a return on investment above what seemed reasonable (and different to that applied to roads). 8% is a figure I'm dredging up. This was one of the causes of the astonishingly cheap electrification of the East Coast line, £306m.

Exactly the point I was making.. I seem to remember 8% as the figure too..

Anyway, as a side point, it would be interesting to know how much was paid in subsidies to persuade companies to take on franchises. I seem to remember it was in the high hundreds of millions, if not the low billions.

[Ramrod]

On a lighter note:

New Rail Safety Fears


There are new fears over the safety of our railways tonight following the publication of a new report. The report, which is the latest in a long line of such works, is likely to have as little effect as the last one. The authors, however, are still quite excited.

"For years we have been having trouble with damaged or missing railway sleepers," said Dr Douglas Ramsbottom. "At last we have found an explanation: Alan Titchmarsh."

According to Dr Ramsbottom and his team of half-eaten Rich Tea biscuits, "It was alright when Titchmarsh and his cronies used old railway sleepers to make their flowerbeds. But now they've run out they've been taking them off railway lines that are still in use!"

The government has responded to the report with caution, because none of the people writing it are members of the Labour party. A spokesman for the Transport Department said, "Our railways have always had an excellent safety record and accidents are extremely rare. The pillaging of railway sleepers for use in second-rate garden makeover shows has got to stop!"

[cjmillsnun]

Originally Posted by SMHarman

Is this like the pair that run down all LU tube tunnels at shoulder height? The driver touches the pair together gets a little tingling sensation and the signals all go red?

Similar. The wire is actually very easy to break by hand, and when broken all signals instantly go to danger and an alarm goes off at the signal panel. The driver (or guard) then contacts the signalman by signal post telephone.

[BBKing]

If it's that easy to break by hand presumably it would be broken in the event of a derailment? In the Severn Tunnel instance you'd want it to break if the other line was fouled, as the axle counters, even if they were working, wouldn't detect a fouling, and of course it's dark (of course you've got the poor guard slogging up the line with some detonators, which can't be fun in a wet four mile tunnel).

Can't remember off the top of my head whether the wire in 1990 was broken by hand or by contact with the trains - since it was a fairly low speed shunt I suspect by hand though, but IIRC the opposite line wasn't fouled.

Edit - teach me not to check, the crash was on December 7th, 1991.