Network Rail to be broken up?

[Raine Man]

Saw this article today:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/...

Since NR got reclassified and their debt appeared on the govt's books there has been a lot of speculation about the company being broken up and funded privately. Possibly each area funded and managed by the primary train operator. Will the railways benefit from a shake up or could it end up as a repeat of the Railtrack debacle?

[SWTH]

If they want to go back to the primary operator managing the track then it could be a good thing. That's how it was before nationalisation in 1948.

To be fair, I never understood why the system had to be so fragmented when privatisation happened. Going back to the big four (with possibly a fifth for freight) wouldn't have been a bad idea.

[Raine Man]

I know in some areas Network Rail has formed what are termed 'deep alliances' with the main TOC for the route & I believe it has shown benefits. At present a lot of energy goes into deciding who is going to foot the bill for any delays, more should go in to working together to tackle the root cause.

[siremoon]

The only true deep alliance was between NR and South West Trains. However that was broken up last year and no longer exists. It doesn't represent a good example of the operational advantages of smaller infrastructure entities.

There are some potential advantages of smaller geographic entities responsible for the infrastructure however to my mind there are two major areas which would need to be addressed.

Firstly the issue of the "sold off" infrastructure provider having to make profits. Railtrack was in this position and to grossly simplify a complex subject they did it by cutting corners (lots of them). They took maintenance holidays, deferred routine renewals, all but destroyed the UK signalling supply industry and most seriously of all, failed to act quickly enough to rectify infrastructure in a dangerous state. The Hatfield derailment was a direct cause of that. NR has frequently been its own worst enemy but some of the problems they face today result from having to fix the shambles of the Railtrack "legacy".

Seondly, one of the largest generators of cost and inefficiciency in the railway now is the sheer number of organisational interfaces created by privatisation. Breaking NR into smaller units would only create more. Many train operators and all of the freight operators would face having to deal with multiple infrastructure providers. That is not going to promote efficiency. Another potential issue is reduction in economies of scale in purchasing, differing policies and requirements across the disparate organisations with conseqent increased costs and problems for suppliers.

These issues will have to be addressed if this stands a chance of improving matters otherwise it will get worse.

[Raine Man]

An interesting development:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/04/net...

At present Network Rail maintains it's own substations, power distribution equipment and overhead contact systems. This stuff is rail-specific equipment that staff have built up knowledge of over decades, and maintaining it also requires knowledge of railway standards and access planning, so I'm guessing whoever they want to farm it out to would need to poach a significant amount of staff from NR anyway.

[DanMal]

Possession planning and pps are fairly simple tools that we main contractors use anyhow. I work for a main contractor on the western route and we've not seen or heard of anything changing thus far from our client organisation. I do however work in heavy civics and structures rather than Signalling or E&P.
I'd argue that NR on the whole are a project management organisation- I say on the whole as there are areas of their business where try still have staff and labour. However, the skilled labour and management have increasingly been employed by main contractors or have gone freelance.