Making better tracks

ON hearing about the latest rail re-organisation, most people will probably have thought: how did the railways ever get into such a mess in the first place? The second may well have been: why couldn't someone have thought of doing this before?

Under "the most fundamental restructuring of Britain's railway since British Rail was reorganised in 1994", Network Rail, the not-for-profit company responsible for maintaining tracks and signals has decided to take all rail maintenance in-house.

Instead of contracting out vital maintenance and repairs to seven commercial companies and then struggling to monitor that work and maintain consistent standards across a country divided up into 20 contract regions, Network Rail will be able to do the job itself.

The company says there will be huge benefits. Savings of up to £300 million a year on the £1.2 billion annual maintenance contract; consistent rail maintenance standards; and continued improvement in track-side safety standards for rail workers.

A Network Rail statement said: "In future, there will be a single management structure with clear lines of accountability and a simplified relationship between operations and maintenance. Network Rail will ensure that maintenance is carried out by a permanent workforce of well-trained individuals committed to a strong safety culture."

Not many many disagree that having a single, centralised organisation which will take direct responsibility for all rail maintenance and repairs will be a big step forward. Rail unions and passengers groups have already welcomed it.

Ernie Preston, York-based secretary of the Rail Passengers' Committee for the North East of England, said under the present system Network Rail would contract out to somebody like Jarvis or Balfour Beatty, who would then sub-contract out to another private firm, who may then sub sub-contract work in their turn. "And every one of these people would be wanting their little slice," he said.

Not only was such a system expensive, it was also inefficient, said Mr Preston. Each time a different organisation got involved, there was more duplication of work, and more potential for misunderstanding.

Steve Coe, York-based negotiator for the Transport and Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA), which represents managers and engineers in the railway industry, agreed. The rationalisation would help curb spiralling railway spending, he said - with less cash being siphoned off into shareholders' pockets (Network Rail is a not-for-profit company which re-invests any operating surplus back into the rail network). And it would also be good news for passenger safety. He said one of the lessons of privatisation was that the fragmentation of the industry had led to a breakdown in communications between the boardroom and trackside workers, which had undermined rail safety.

The question many will ask is, if the benefits of having a single organisation in charge are so obvious, how did the railways ever get into the mess they are now in?

Simple, says Mr Preston - and repeats a line taken by Transport Secretary Alastair Darling. "Privatisation was botched - because of the indecent haste with which it was carried out.

"If the process had been considered more carefully, some of the mechanisms and structures put into place would never have happened."

That was not to say, he stressed, that British Rail had been perfect. One of the problems it had faced was that all the money it made went straight to the Treasury - so that whenever BR wanted to invest in the rail network it had to go cap-in-hand back to the Government.

There were benefits of having an industry in charge of its own purse strings, he said - and the model that seemed to be developing, of having a not-for-profit company such as Network Rail in chage of the rail infrastructure, appeared to be a good one.

But is the latest move a step towards wholesale re-nationalisation of the rail industry? No, says Network Rail. The company is, a spokesman pointed out, a private company - even if a not-for-profit one - and so it cannot be nationalised. "This is rationalisation, not nationalisation," she said.

Unions such as the TSSA, however, would still like to see greater centralisation of the railways. In particular, says Steve Coe, it would seem logical that now Network Rail has taken over responsibility for track maintenance and repair, it should take over responsibility for laying new track as well.

At the moment that is still contracted out to companies such as Jarvis.

Despite yesterday's step it seems unlikely that that will change, for the foreseeable future at least. "Network Rail remains fully committed to the on-going use of third-party suppliers for rail renewals contracts," a spokesman for the company said.

"These are specialist functions where there is a competitive supply market and it is entirely appropriate that contractors undertake such work."

What it will mean for our rail workers:

The latest announcement by Network Rail will not directly affect rail workers in the York area.

All rail maintenance in the area was carried out by York-based Jarvis - which had already announced it was pulling out of railway maintenance.

All its 3,500-plus staff involved in track and signal maintenance had therefore already been notified they would be transferred to Network Rail.

Nationally, as a result of the Jarvis announcement and the latest rationalisation, a total of 18,500 people now employed by Jarvis, Balfour Beatty, Amec, Amey Carillion, First Engineering and Serco will move to the company.

At present, these seven companies bid for rail maintenance contracts in 20 contract areas across the country - a process which Network Rail says involves "considerable management duplication and complex reporting, hand-back and inspection procedures".

No date has been given for the rationalisation to be completed. "The timetables...will be dictated by safety considerations and negotiations with the existing maintenance activities," said a Network Rail spokesperson. "However, it is expected that the transfers will be complete by the end of Summer 2004."

Updated: 11:13 Saturday, October 25, 2003