ATOC think piece warmly welcomed

Exciting news from ATOC!

The Association of Train Operating Companies has published a position paper on industry structural reform.

The document, A new structure for success on Britain's Railways, has been warmly welcomed by the Department for Transport.

And in particular by Petrol-head Hammond, who is understood to be both highly impressed and absolutely delighted by ATOC's public lobbying.

UPDATE: This from John...

It appears that the Rail Freight Group is equally delighted:

RFG Chairman Tony Berkeley commented ‘ATOC offers no cost savings itself, only ‘efficiencies’ through its members having a commercial arrangement with the regional infrastructure companies (infracos) which would replace Network Rail. Interestingly, the TOCs offer no evidence that they would be particularly good at managing or maintaining infrastructure. Only last week Chiltern had to call on Network Rail to take over management of one of the few infrastructure projects managed by a TOC – Evergreen 3. And Network Rail itself has come out well on the £65m gauge enhancement project from Southampton to the West Midlands , coming out on time and £10m under budget.

‘ATOC also seems to have forgotten, again, than many of their proposals are illegal under EU law; allocation of capacity must be done by a body independent of any train operator (Art 13 of Directive 2001/14) in a fair and non-discriminatory way. The charging body must also be independent of any train operator (Art 4, 2001/14) , so any cosy joint venture between a TOC and an infraco involving any of these activities which ATOC members clearly want to get their hands on, would see the UK Government in the European Court of Justice. Try to convince the Secretary of State that this was a good idea!

No love lost there then.

Eye solves NR's recruitment problem

This from Leo Pink...

I note that Network Rail is advertising for Managing Directors on its website.

Would not it make more sense to advertise for these new Regional Managing Directors in the Australian or Irish press, since those seem to be the countries of choice for ex British Rail senior managers who know how to run a railway?

Advertising in the UK press will only get applications from TOC directors (much to the annoyance of Philip Hammond) or people from other industries who think running a railway is easy (much to the annoyance of everyone else).

And we all recall where importing such thrusting new executives left Railtrack in days gone by...

Network Rail shifts the deckchairs?

Despite Petrol-head planning to restructure the industry with primary legislation Network Rail continues to try and seize the initiative.

The latest exciting development from the infrastructure controller will be unveiled today - devolved business units run by managing directors!

Based on NR's existing nine routes these new business units will see route managing directors, in effect, running their own infrastructure railway business with annual spending power of some £600m+, employing some 3,000 people.

Exciting news indeed and not before time.

Eye understands that NR has set itself a challenging pace to achieve these reforms, with the new MD roles advertised in the press today and two devolved routes (Scotland and Wessex) going live in April!

But is this all too little too late?