There's an interesting article in Rail 891 (see p.52) by Dennis Fancett of South East Northumberland Rail User Group, where he outlines some of the reasons why the GRIP▸ process is so bad at delivering new routes.
Saw Dennis at the recent RailFuture Branches and Groups day in Birmingham ... and noted just how long his group has been campaigning - along with
MPs▸ , the community, businesses ( and probably the local seagulls too ) to take a line that's open for freight and put a passenger service on it. The various "if"s, "but"s and arguments appear to have been explored. Alternatives looks at and ruled out. Sentiment and prospective passenger numbers (after the optimism factor has been taken into account) looked at realistically. And Dennis and his team have been around so long that any idea of them going away once the first train runs and leaving the rail industry holding the baby is laughable.
His argument is that instead of acting as a supplier when a customer comes along wanting to extend the rail network, NR» spends time and money second-guessing the customer's requirement: Are you sure the populations of these towns are going to grow? Wouldn't a bus do the job? Sorry, but you have to give us some money and wait while we go off and ask these questions, even though you have already answered them to your own satisfaction.
If you went to your local VW dealer with a thick pile of banknotes in your back pocket and asked to buy a car, they wouldn't make you pay £10,000 up front to check whether you should buy a Ford instead, or whether walking boots might be better! So why do NR do this?
His argument is an excellent one. Network Rail, though, finds itself having to take on the revenue / running costs of the completed works for the next "n" decades and to that extent needs to be convinced that it's taking on something that is (at worst) minimal risk. It's very much risk averse (unless, of course, it's instructed by its political masters - in which case the pendulum swings the other way!).
It's almost as though they don't want to extend the network...
Perhaps many a true word spoken in jest. With limited resources, why not concentrate on the status quo and a few gentle upgrades where needed for robustness. No need to grow the business to stave off the competition and stay ahead of the market. Network Rail are a government monopoly ...
I can't help wondering how we could be during the next decade is the train operation also becomes solely a similar monopoly, as some of our political parties are suggesting. Mind you, the franchising system that we currently operate under doesn't seem to be doing brilliantly. I wonder how an implementation of what Williams suggests can sort this out - or indeed if whoever's running the country will have such implementation high enough up their agenda for the report to do more than gather dust.
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