Here’s a report from the Mirror. Anyone know more info?
Sir Richard Branson vows to cut train travel times
By Mark Ellis 20/05/2009
Sir Richard Branson mapped out his vision for the railways yesterday claiming he can slash journey times on Britain’s busiest route.
The founder of Virgin Trains said London to Glasgow could be cut by 50 minutes to three hours 40 minutes and London to Birmingham to under an hour.
But Sir Richard, whose firm operates on the West Coast main line, added it could only happen if private companies were given franchises of 20 to 30 years to ease the burden on the taxpayer. The billionaire said: "With public finances strained, the private sector will be crucial in driving rail investment over the next 20 years.
“Companies such as Virgin have transformed Britain’s trains into among the most modern in Europe but we’re running them on 19th century tracks and stations.”
Sir Richard also wants to link the West Coast main line to Heathrow airport and the Channel Tunnel. But the RMT union’s Bob Crow said: “Privatisation has been a disaster for the railways.”
There is some truth in what Branson says; Chiltern Trains, which has a 20 year franchise is carrying out a lot of expansions which it is funding from its own resources. But Virgin have just had about £8billion of UK money towards upgrading the West Coast Main Line and herein lies the problem. The railways by and large are not sufficiently profitable to be able to generate investment without some sort of subsidy from governments. This is true in all Western countries, including the US.
The problem with the way railways were privatised in Britain is that we’ve ended up with a system that costs 5 times what British Rail cost in real terms. Whilst there have been some benefits I don’t think even the most ardent supporter of privitisation would claim the service is 5 times better!
I think that any discussion of inter city passenger rail service must have a public private partnership. The right of way should be owned and maintained by the taxpayers. This is the way we maintain and operate our roads and airports. The train operator then would pay for a franchise to operate trains over the line. That company would own and maintain all rolling stock and locomotives, hire all on board crew including engineers and conductors.Dispachers would also be company employees and signals would be operated by the company and owned by the taxpayers as part of the franchise agreement. In theory this should mean a profit for the operator and break even for the taxpayer; at least one can hope!
I think there are things that the US can learn from the British railway privatization including its mistakes like Railtrack. Branson and others could be a resource for the US in developing a 21ST century passenger system.
I think where the private sector can help is with financing. One of the more successful aspects of UK rail privitization is that the rolling stock companies (ROSCOs) have financed one or two speculative builds of rolling stock. Even before privitization, British Rail had on occassions leased locomotives, the class 50’s for example, from the manufacturers. Also the quarry company Foster Yeoman financed its own wagons and locomotives which were operated by BR staff on secondment.
