This from John...
I read with interest your recent piece on the new Railway Delivery Group.
What an interesting selection of people who have been chosen to deliver our new-and-improved railway.
They are:
- The head of one owner group who publicly referred to DfT as 'dysfunctional and deceitful'
- The head of a nationalised TOC that replaced two failed private sector operators
- A representative of the group that last ran the failed franchise above and which is in the process of losing its remaining two franchises
- A formerly successful British transport company which has since been bought by German State Railways and has had its assets sold off to the Italians
- A nominee of the Dutch State Railways
- A major British franchise operator whose only franchise may be nationalised next year as the government can’t decide what to do with it when it expires
- The transport group that is handing a major franchise back early to save money
- An executive from one owner group who will shortly join Network Rail's board
- A successful British freight operator, which is now owned by the Baharainis
- A nominee of German State Railways
- Two representatives from the Infrastructure controller
- And all records to be kept by a member of the Railway Heritage Committee
UPDATE: This from Bacon Butty...
Interestingly there is no financier representation on the new Rail Delivery Group.
Perhaps private sector investment in our railways is no longer required?
UPDATE: This from Leo Pink...
One unintended consequence of nationalisation is that the new Rail Delivery Group will not fall foul of Harriet Harperson's Equality Act...
UPDATE: This from the Globetrotter...
Whoops, I see no French freight operator amongst the forward-looking membership of this dynamic new industry leadership group.
Like all of the new entrants and open access competitors, the blue team appears to have been passed over in favour of the usual suspects from the ex-incumbents and/or state-owned nominees.
The green team, which I think is the organisation in question, is in fact owned by a Bahrain investment group, so the boys in red braces are not entirely overlooked.
Of course, the German-owned red team is represented by a French-Canadian, so at least the linguistic pot-pourri remains intact.
With the Scots supplying an American and the thin controller hailing from Brisbane, we have a truly British line-up going forward.
The Fact Compiler stands corrected - post amended.
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