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Tom Winsor won't let Richard Bowker make rural and freight users second class citizens
Back in October, this column devoted a couple of pages to the Strategic Rail Authority's Specification of Network Outputs (SNO). This had got a lot of people, not least the freight operators, jumping up and down with its proposals for a two tier system of maintenance standards.
What money was available would go into improving services for London commuters and InterCity travellers. Secondary, rural and freight routes would be allowed to become one long TSR. In parallel the SRA proposed longer possessions to improve the efficiency of maintenance and cut costs further.
Apologies all round for the wasted effort because it ain't going to happen. Tom Winsor has spoken. And spoken rather sharply.
Shortly before publication of the Regulator's third consultation paper (Informed Sources October) the SRA told ORR that it would not be able to accommodate an increase in access charges within its existing allocation of funding from the Department for Transport. Remember that the Regulator's statutory guidance from the Secretary of State for Transport requires him to give the SRA time to consider ‘whether it wishes to amend its strategies or seek consent from the Secretary of State for additional expenditure'.
But Tom Winsor has now said that in discharging all of his statutory duties under section 4 of the Railways Act 1993, he currently can't see any action that he could take ‘to reduce access charges below the level set out in the Draft Conclusions'.
Winsor argues that it is not realistic to assume that Network Rail can reduce its expenditure by more than the amounts he has set in the Draft Conclusions if it is to deliver the improving performance he expects in return (Table below). The time taken to return to pre-Hatfield performance is already a political issue.
Similarly allowing Network Rail to deliver less onerous targets for delay minutes or other outputs, which is the corollary of the SRA's controlled neglect proposal for secondary, rural and freight-only lines, would be ‘to the detriment of users of the railway and to the use and development of the network'. This, Winsor points out, ‘would obstruct the furtherance by the SRA of its strategies'. As Table 5 shows the Regulator expects things to get better in exchange for all the money Network Rail will get.
If the SRA's proposals are adopted the result will be devastating for rail freight. Routes that are critical for freight will be downgraded, track renewals will be halved, Temporary Speed Restrictions increased and service performance will be destroyed. EWS response to SNO |
Measure |
Target |
Network capability |
No reduction in the capability of any route for broadly existing use from April 2001 levels |
Asset condition |
|
— broken rails
|
Reductions in the number of broken rails to no more than 300 per annum in by 2005/06. No increase thereafter. |
Track geometry
|
Reduction in the number of L2 exceedences per track mile to no greater than 0.9 by 2005/06. No increase thereafter. |
— TSRs
|
Annual reductions in the number of temporary speed restrictions. |
— structures and electrification
|
Condition and serviceability to return to 2001/02 levels |
— other measures |
Other asset condition and serviceability measures to show no deterioration from 2003/04 levels. |
The Regulator believes it would be inappropriate, as part of the regulatory settlement to prescribe a rigid framework of route differentiation. Nor would it be appropriate for an economic regulator to seek to micro manage Network Rail Draft Conclusions |
So far, so civilised. But behind the scenes the SNO had received a drubbing from the Regulator. Writing on 1 September to Richard Bowker , Winsor said ‘I will require a clear statement of… your specification for the quality of the infrastructure that train operators are likely to require from April 2004 onwards'.
Er, what about the SNO on which consultation had closed only a few days earlier? Well, having considered the response to the SNO consultation, where controlled neglect had gone down badly, Winsor wanted to know whether the SRA was, after all, content for Network Rail to deliver the outputs in its September 2003 Business Plan. The alternative would be for SRA to use its various powers and discretions to enable Network Rail's customers to reduce the outputs they require from the infrastructure operator.
But hang on, isn't this all a bit last minute? Here is the Regulator warming up to deliver his draft conclusion and he still doesn't know what the SRA wants?
Over to Tom. ‘It is very important that your strategy sets out in precise terms the outputs you expect operators to require of Network Rail, when and on what conditions those outputs will be deliverable and the means by which you will secure any amendments to existing output commitments and expectations. In this respect I should point out that the draft strategy is insufficiently clear for the purpose of the (interim) review as to the number of services the SRA wishes operators to run, how fast the trains should be able to travel and what level of punctuality would be considered acceptable'.
And that's not all, Mr Winsor also pointed out that with differentiation the SNO strayed into specifying inputs, when the SRA has no powers to determine the manner in which Network Rail carries out its maintenance and renewal activities'. Crikey, talk about imperious.
So it seems that the SNO was a false alarm. And I now realise that the time Tom came up to me and said abruptly ‘you don't usually write rubbish', before taking apart in cutting detail some comment in these columns, was a passing pleasantry.
Unfortunately the Regulator's ‘blitzkrieg' approach to the Interim Review means that the SRA hasn't had time to mobilise its resources and is now an enclave awaiting mopping up as Panzer Gruppe Winsor sweeps on to 1 April 2003. Had the SRA set off at the same pace it could, perhaps, have got the operators to agree the lower standards implicit in differentiation or a revised possessions policy.
But it didn't. And it will be interesting to see how the Final Conclusion copes with the issues raised.
304 days to Pendolino 125