Irish Examiner: 17 May 2006
By Michael O?Farrell, Paul Kelly and Mary Regan

TENSE talks between union officials and drivers engaged in the wildcat rail strike were continuing last night as the cost of the stoppage spiralled into millions.

Failure to resolve the dispute will leave rail passengers throughout the country facing another day of travel chaos today.

Last night, officials from SIPTU and the National Bus and Railworkers? Union remained engaged in talks with independent mediator Phil Flynn and representatives of the Locomotive Drivers? Committee in a bid to convince more than 60 drivers to return to work.

However, with management at Iarnr?ireann refusing to even enter talks until drivers resume work, there appears to be little prospect of a straightforward resolution.

More than 35,000 passengers were again affected yesterday when trains to and from Dublin to Cork, Kerry, Galway and Mayo were cancelled. In addition, thousands of commuters working in Dublin and Cork were late or unable to turn up for work altogether as commuter routes also shut down.
With each day, the cost of the dispute is mounting considerably.

On top of the ?500,000 in ticket sales being lost daily by Iarnr?ireann, a wide range of other businesses are also reporting losses with some closing temporarily.

The group representing small and medium businesses, ISME, said some companies were facing the possibility of going out of business as the cost of the stoppage runs into millions.

?We are extremely concerned that a limited number of individuals can hold train users to ransom. Overall, it has been very disruptive from a business point of view,? said ISME?s head of research Jim Curran.

Mr Curran said that in addition to problems with absent staff, companies were facing significant disruption of delivery and supply chains.

But potentially the most devastating long-term impact of the strike could be in tourism where already hotels are reporting a large number of booking cancellations.

Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) members yesterday estimated that ?150,000 worth of bookings a day were being cancelled and there are already question marks over a number of large conferences planned for this weekend.

Meanwhile, political condemnation of the 60 drivers now refusing to work continued, with Fine Gael transport spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell accusing them of two days of ?self-indulgent and irresponsible petulance?.

Posted on 08:44 AM | Permalink

The Guardian: May 17, 2006
Mark Milner

The appeal court reserved judgment yesterday on an appeal by the engineering company Balfour Beatty against the record �10m fine imposed on it after the Hatfield rail crash, in which four people died.

Balfour Beatty admitted breaches of the health and safety legislation in relation to a broken rail which caused the crash, in October 2000.

Network Rail was fined �3.5m for the same incident. Lawyers for Balfour Beatty argued before three judges, including the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, that the fine was excessive and did not give the company credit for its guilty plea.

Posted on 08:37 AM | Permalink

Reuters: 17 May 2006

LONDON - British rail and bus operator FirstGroup Plc (FGP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday that full-year pretax profit rose 6 percent after stronger UK rail earnings offset higher bus fuel costs.

FirstGroup said adjusted pretax profit for the year to March 31 was 176.4 million pounds ($331.8 million) compared to 166.5 million pounds a year ago.

This compared to a forecast of 171 million pounds, according to the consensus of 11 analysts' forecasts on Reuters Estimates.

See also:

Rail arm steers First's profits

Scotland on Sunday: May 16, 2006

FIRSTGROUP, the transport operator, is expected to reveal a growing performance gap between its expanding railway operations and its bus arm, which is suffering from soaring fuel prices.

Moir Lockhead, First's chief executive, is expected this week to reveal a rise in rail profits but a sharp dip in earnings from the bus division. Profits from trains are due to show a 10 per cent lift to GBP 70m, while UK bus profits are down 9 per cent to GBP 97m.

The bus division is now coming under pressure from analysts who would like to see some of the bus businesses curtailed.

FirstGroup won the Thameslink Great Northern and Great Western franchises earlier this year, although it did not start running them until April. The wins boosted its share of UK rail passenger revenue from 15.3 per cent to a market-leading 23.2 per cent, according to company estimates.

First plans to install ticket barriers at 11 stations on the Thameslink commuter network, renamed Capital Connect, to catch fare dodgers and raise revenues. This approach generated extra profits at First ScotRail, the franchise won from National Express in 2004.

Some sceptics have questioned the value of the new franchises, suggesting that First overpaid when it bid GBP 2bn for them. But the company is confident it can squeeze additional profits from them.

The Aberdeen company has also taken steps to improve its underperforming UK bus business, where revenue growth, driven mainly by fare increases, is running at between 7 per cent and 10 per cent a year. First has cut the amount of time buses spend out of action and is renegotiating deals with local authorities.

But First's efforts have been undermined by the rising price of fuel. Gert Zonneveld, an analyst at Panmure Gordon, said: "Cost pressures should ensure that operating margins for the UK bus division are likely to decline this year and next. Cost savings will be achieved, but we do not see this preventing margins falling." He added the cost of above-inflation wage rises were also putting pressure on the division, although First has got around manpower shortages by recruiting 1,000 drivers from Poland.

Some of FirstGroup's worst- performing bus companies are coming under scrutiny in the City. Damian Brewer, an analyst at JP Morgan, said: "Operations in the Scottish Borders and in Devon and Cornwall... lose GBP 5m-GBP 7m per year. With ScotRail and Great Western rail contract hurdles now cleared, FirstGroup can now move on and rationalise these operations, either to ensure break even or possibly to exit." The company's US arm, which runs school buses, has grown rapidly since First entered the market in 1999, but JP Morgan expects profit growth over the next two years to be held back by fuel costs.

Analysts believe First may acquire a few bus companies in the UK and US as the industry consolidates. Citigroup's Roger Elliott said: "Sector consolidation is a popular topic as the UK bus barons retire.

"We see the most likely corporate activity in the sector as a merger of equals, given that any of the UK bus and rail stocks would struggle to fund an acquisition of a peer and we do not see a private equity angle to this sector, given the political and regulatory risks, the limited leverage that UK rail profits can support and the dearth of exit possibilities." JP Morgan estimates First made a pre-tax profit of GBP 156.5m in the year to March, up just 0.5 per cent on the year before, on turnover up 11 per cent to GBP 3bn. Citigroup, which uses a different profit basis, predicts a pre-tax increase to GBP 170m, up 0.6 per cent.

Posted on 08:34 AM | Permalink

RMT: May 16 2006

BRITAIN'S BIGGEST rail union urged the new Transport Secretary to ensure that essential fire-safety regulations for sub-surface railway stations are not abolished, as currently planned, after the Fire Safety Order comes into force later this year.

Responding to Douglas Alexander's statement on rail security today, RMT general secretary Bob Crow also renewed the union's call for an industry-wide forum for rail security and urged the government to ensure that all stations are adequately staffed with safety-trained personnel every moment they are open to the public.

"Any measures that improve security and safety for passengers and our members and reduce the risk of terrorist attack are to be welcomed," Bob Crow said.

"However, the government still intends to do away with the essential 'Section 12' sub-surface station regulations that were introduced after the King's Cross Fire and to replace them with the far looser and less specific Fire Safety Order.

"Keeping those regulations in place is a simple step that would help prevent the cost-led downgrading of fire-safety precautions that would otherwise be allowed under the Fire Safety Order.

"Getting uniformed and properly trained staff back onto every railway station is another essential step that would help improve security, boost passenger confidence and increase rail use," Bob Crow said.

"Ever since July 7 have been seeking a meeting with ATOC to forge an industry-wide approach to rail security, and we would welcome any move that would help bring that about," Bob Crow said.

ends

Notes to editors: The 1989 Regulations make up Section 12 of the Fire Precautions Act 1971, and were added on the recommendation of the Fennell Report into the 1987 King's Cross fire. They cover 'sub-surface stations' throughout Britain, including those on underground systems in Glasgow, Tyne and Wear and London, but also national rail stations which are 'sub-surface', including Birmingham New Street, London's Charing Cross and several in Liverpool. The government's Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2004, as originally drafted, would have repealed the 1971 Act, and with it the Section 12 regulations.

The regulations stipulate minimum safe staffing levels, means of detecting and warning of fires and means of escape and firefighting, as well as standards of fire-resistant construction, training and various other precautions, which are not specified in the Fire Safety Order the government wants to replace them with.

The government's first move to scrap the 1989 regulations - which lay down minimum staffing levels and other safety standards for sub-surface stations - was opposed by the House of Commons' Regulatory Reform Committee in October 2004, following an intervention by RMT parliamentary group convenor John McDonnell. The relevant part of the committee's report is attached.

The government has subsequently said it would repeal the regulations in April 2006, but most recently indicated that it would do so six to 12 months after the Fire Safety Order comes into force. However, the Fire Safety Order and guidance do not give the same statutory protections as in the 1989 Regulations, specifically on:

* Means of escape
* Means of fighting fire
* Means of detection and giving warning
* Fire-resistant construction
* Instruction and training
* Keeping of records
* Additional precautions including practicable steps to prevent smoking, and staffing levels.

Parliamentary Early Day Motion 549, tabled by John MacDonnell after the London bombings and signed to date by 65 MPs

Early Day Motion 549 - Fire Precautions Regulations

In the name of John McDonnell and 64 others:

"That this House condemns the terrorist attacks on London's public transport network and commends the bravery and professionalism of the emergency services, London Underground, national rail network and London bus service workers who were on hand to provide assistance and support in the immediate aftermath of the attacks; notes that the Government is set to review the Fire Precautions (Sub-surface Railway Stations) Regulations 1989, introduced following the Fennell Report into the 1987 King's Cross Fire disaster; further notes that the Regulations set out minimum standards for fire precautions in sub-surface railway stations including means of escape, means of fighting fire, minimum staffing levels and staff instruction and training; believes that these minimum standards are even more essential in light of the recent terrorist attacks; and calls on the Government to retain in full the 1989 Regulations."

Posted on 04:29 PM | Permalink

RMT: May 16 2006

NEARLY 700 RMT members at Go-Ahead's Wilts and Dorset bus operation are to strike for 24 hours on May 18 and a further 48 hours on May 25 and 26 after the company failed to table a strings-free pay offer in the face of a massive strike vote.

Drivers, engineers and clerical staff at depots in Salisbury, Poole, Bournemouth, Ringwood, Swanage, Blandford, Pewsey and Lymington voted by 479 to 21 to take strike action

"Our members have voted by a massive 95 per cent to strike because the company has failed to table a serious pay offer," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

"Rather than offer a strings-free pay deal the company is seeking to undermine working conditions that have been built up over many years, and with one voice our members have said 'no'.

"With an overwhelming vote for action RMT members across the company have made it clear that they will not pay for Go-Ahead's poor management or subsidise their shareholders with the loss of hard-won conditions.

"Wilts and Dorset should have no doubts now that the route to a settlement involves severing the strings they have attached to this year's pay round and tabling a decent offer," Bob Crow said.

Posted on 04:19 PM | Permalink

The Guardian: May 16, 2006
Press Association

The £10 million fine imposed on engineering giant Balfour Beatty in the wake of the Hatfield rail disaster was "excessive" and did not credit the company for its plea of guilty, defence lawyers argued in the Court of Appeal.

Balfour Beatty's rail infrastructure division had admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act in relation to the broken rail which caused the crash, killing four people and injuring many others.

Jonathan Caplan QC, for the company, said: "Inevitably, some will perceive large companies as irresponsible if they seek to contest a financial penalty in the wake of a major accident.

"We don't believe that is the case here."

The company's failure to abide by safety rules was described by an Old Bailey judge last October as "one of the worst examples of sustained industrial negligence in a high risk industry I have ever seen".

Mr Justice Mackay said 750,000 passengers' lives had been put at risk due to the broken rail which eventually caused the derailment of a London-to-Leeds express on October 17 2000.

The 117mph derailment also left 102 injured.

A faulty rail at the crash site was identified 21 months before the crash but left unrepaired - although a replacement rail had been delivered and left alongside it for six months.

Balfour Beatty - responsible for track maintenance at the time - was fined £10 million and Network Rail £3.5 million for breaking safety rules before the crash. The companies were also ordered to pay £300,000 each in costs.

The trial judge had ordered that a verdict of not guilty should be entered on a charge of corporate manslaughter.

Posted on 04:05 PM | Permalink

Financial Times: May 15 2006
By Robert Wright in London

Eurotunnel is pushing holders of its £6.18bn ($11.6bn) debt to agree a restructuring by the middle of this week but the Channel tunnel operator's creditors are cautious about whether a deal can be achieved in time.

Shares in Eurotunnel were suspended in Paris on Monday as the group confirmed it was in talks with Macquarie and Goldman Sachs about a restructuring that would involve the two investment banks.

See also:

Investment banks in talks to cut Eurotunnel debt

The Guardian: May 16, 2006
David Teather

Eurotunnel hopes to put a deal in place by the end of this week to sharply reduce its debts and ward off the threat of bankruptcy, it said yesterday.

The operator of the Channel Tunnel rail link has brought the US investment bank Goldman Sachs and Australian firm Macquarie into its discussions as potential investors, as it seeks a means of restructuring its £6.3bn of debts.

Eurotunnel's situation has become more urgent as it faces repayment on what it will only describe as a substantial chunk of capital next year, as well as its ongoing interest repayments. The business is still labouring under the cost of digging the tunnel link between England and France, which was hugely underestimated.

"It is very complicated," said spokesman John Keefe. "There are a large number of different parties and keeping them all happy and achieving value for everyone is very difficult. But we are very hopeful. We have set out our intention to reach an agreement by mid-May and we hope to have something in the coming days."

There have also been discussions with the French construction and transport company Vinci about some form of involvement with the restructuring, to head off nationalist concerns in Paris about the rail business ending up in American and Australian hands. Goldman and Macquarie are expected to take on debt that will over time convert into shares.

A source close to some of the creditors said there was a willingness to get a deal done, but an agreement had not yet been reached. Eurotunnel previously said a sustainable level of debt would be nearer to £2.2bn, but more recently admitted it could probably shoulder a little more.

Eurotunnel hopes to achieve a "consensual agreement" with everyone down to small shareholders getting something back. Its shares, suspended in London two weeks ago, were frozen in Paris yesterday.

Mr Keefe said that Goldman and Macquarie had been invited to the table around 10 days ago after it became clear that some long-suffering creditors were looking for a cash exit. Shares in Macquarie were also suspended in Sydney, pending a "significant announcement".

Posted on 08:33 AM | Permalink

Irish Times: May 16, 2006

Further severe disruption to rail services is expected today as a result of the unofficial action by train drivers that left up to 35,000 passengers stranded yesterday.

Services to and from Heuston Station in Dublin and Kent Station in Cork were the worst affected, but there was significant disruption throughout the south and west.

The dispute erupted after two Cork-based drivers refused to operate a new high-tech train which the company had planned to bring into service on a trial basis yesterday. All other Cork-based drivers stopped work in support of their two colleagues, as did all drivers based at Inchicore in Dublin. Half of those based in Limerick also joined the action.

As a result there were no services between Dublin and Cork, while only a limited number operated from the capital to Limerick, Galway, Westport and Waterford.

A similar level of disruption is expected today.

There were no indications that an early resolution to the dispute was likely, with the company insisting last night that it would not negotiate with staff engaged in unofficial action.

Industrial relations mediator Phil Flynn had been scheduled to meet the company and driver representatives today to discuss issues between them. However, he has cancelled this meeting as a result of the drivers' action. Mr Flynn will hold exploratory discussions today with union officials.

Iarnr?ireann is seeking to introduce a new generation of trains, known as the "Mark Four", as part of a ?117 million investment in its rolling stock. Siptu and the National Bus and Rail Union sought a pay increase of 5 per cent for drivers, and a reduction in working hours, in return for the introduction of the new trains as well as other work changes.

The claim was rejected in January by the Labour Court, which said drivers were required to operate the new trains under a 2000 agreement with the company known as the "new deal". But the court said the sides should have further discussions on other issues, such as the application of new safety standards.

NBRU general secretary Liam Tobin said last night that there was "a perception" among the drivers that all of the issues would have been agreed before the new trains were introduced.

Iarnr?ireann, however, said the introduction of the trains was a separate matter which had been dealt with by the Labour Court.

Its director of business development, John Keenan, said talks on the outstanding issues had been taking place and in recent days the company had accepted the unions' suggestion that Mr Flynn be appointed as mediator.

"Really what has happened is that a small group of drivers have hijacked the process. That type of behaviour cannot and should not be rewarded in any way," he said.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the action was "particularly disappointing" given the investment that had been made in improving facilities for customers on the Dublin-Cork route. "It isn't the way to do business. There are extensive mechanisms available through the labour relations machinery to sort out this type of issue without causing major inconvenience to the public which is what happened on a wet Monday morning."

See also:

Iarnr?ireann warns of second day of disruption

RTE News: 15 May 2006

Iarnr?ireann is warning passengers that they may face a second day of disruption tomorrow as a result of unofficial industrial action by train drivers.

Up to 35,000 rail users were affected today because of the dispute over the introduction of new trains.

Iarnr?ireann says the last train has left Heuston Station for the night with the 7pm train to Galway - five other scheduled trains for later tonight have been cancelled.

Of a total of 50 scheduled departures from Heuston Station today only 13 trains left the station.

Services to the west and south were disrupted by the action, which began at around 6.30am this morning.

Drivers are demanding reduced working hours if they are to operate new Mark Four trains, which were introduced on the Cork line today.

Iarnr?ireann earlier advised people not to travel by train unless it was absolutely necessary to do so, with passengers who needed to travel advised to contact the company.

The company's website, www.irishrail.ie, is carrying details of any changes in the company's services arising from today's industrial action.

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has said he is very disappointed at the drivers, particurlarly in the light of huge investment that the Government has made in Iarnr?ireann.

A small number of Inter City services left Heuston Station as scheduled this morning but the majority of services between Heuston and the south and west have been disrupted.

Iarnr?ireann has spent ?117 million on 67 new carriages which it is hoped will hugely improve the frequency of its trains on the Dublin-Cork route by the end of the year.

The company had planned to introduce the first of those new trains on the route today for in-service training, but two drivers in Cork refused to operate the new trains.

The drivers have not been suspended but the company says it has told them they will not be paid until they operate the new trains.

A number of other drivers are now refusing to work in support of their colleagues.

Labour Court ruled against drivers

In January, the Labour Court ruled against drivers who were seeking a pay increase for operating the new trains.

Negotiations are continuing on other issues relating to extra money for agreeing to more stringent monitoring of driver standards and for coaching trainee drivers.

The company says it is committed to concluding an agreement on these issues but says they are not connected to the introduction of the new trains.

The drivers dispute this and say they cannot operate the new trains until an agreement has been concluded.

The drivers also say they have concerns about the training they received on the trains prior to their introduction to service.

Posted on 08:06 AM | Permalink

RSSB: May 2006

Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) has published the formal inquiry report into the circumstances that led to two young passengers being struck and fatally injured by the 0724 hrs Birmingham New Street to Stansted Airport train on the station footpath crossing at Elsenham on 3 December 2005

The formal inquiry was convened under independent chairmanship and included representatives on the panel from the involved parties. As with all such inquiries the panel's task was to establish the immediate and underlying causes of the accident and make recommendations to prevent or reduce the risk of recurrence.

Sequence of events

The road level crossing gates at Elsenham were closed to road traffic for the passage of approaching trains. The adjacent station footpath crossing equipped with wicket gates and miniature red/green pedestrian warning lights (MWLs), were showing red and the associated yodel alarms sounding as the 0950 hrs London Liverpool Street to Cambridge service passed over the crossings to stop at the Down platform. The red light remained illuminated and the yodel alarm continued to sound due to the approach of the 0724 hrs Birmingham New Street to Stansted Airport service which was to pass through the station on the Up Line.

Two girls, aged 13 and 14 years, had just purchased tickets for travel to Cambridge from the booking office located on the Up Platform. They approached the station footpath crossing as the Cambridge train stopped onthe opposite, Down Platform. They opened the Up side wicket gate and walked on to the crossing, and in doing so, were struck by the Stansted train. They were both fatally injured.

Conclusions

Immediate cause

The two girls did not react to the red miniature warning light and yodel alarm, which visually and audibly indicated that it was not safe to open the wicket gate and use the station footpath crossing.

Underlying causes

The ability to open the wicket gates and cross the lines when it was not safe
to do so.

Necessity for Cambridge passengers, not in possession of a ticket, to make a purchase on the Up Platform and then cross to the Down Platform.

Insufficient time allowance by the girls to purchase tickets and board the train to Cambridge.

Possible influence on the girls of misuse of the crossing by other, older users.

Recommendations

The report makes recommendations for improvements in a number of key areas and these are summarised as follows.

Applicable to All Types of Level Crossing

? Initiate with Her Majesty?s Railways Inspectorate/Department for Transport a review of Railway Safety Principles and Guidance to produce crossing guidance, warning and access systems that embrace current human factors knowledge, and provide consistent and compatible systems for all types of crossing. The review should establish reasonably practicable controls and identify the extent of user responsibility.
- Network Rail and RSSB

Applicable to Station Footpath and Station Barrow Crossings

? Commission a quantitative risk assessment at Elsenham and the other 13 station footpath crossings with MWLs to establish reasonably practicable safety system options and controls to minimise the risks to users. The assessment should include a consideration of:
? Implications of closure
? Provision of a footbridge
? Minimising need to cross the tracks
? Securing wicket gates
? Improvements to MWLs
? Audible warnings including train horns
? ?Another train coming? warning
? Signing appropriate to MWL crossings
- Network Rail

? Initiate with the Office of Rail Regulation a review of the station access conditions and/or the new station code to provide clarity on the responsibility for management of station footpath and barrow crossings.
- Network Rail

Specific to Elsenham

? Consult with the community leaders at Elsenham to establish their views on the current level of misuse and the balance between convenience and safety during use of the station footpath crossing. Take cognisance of their views in formulating short and long term plans for the crossing.
- Network Rail

? Consider making permanent the temporary video surveillance at Elsenham station footpath crossing. Initiate appropriate action, including enforcement and associated publicity, to deter misuse of the crossing.
- Network Rail

? Arrange publicity and education to explain to the users of Elsenham station, the options for improving safety at the crossing and their responsibility in promoting proper use of the foot crossing.
- Network Rail

? Review the options for providing ticket issuing facilities on the Down platform at Elsenham station by assessing the practicability of installing a self service ticket machine, or alternatively offering a limited range of tickets for stations towards Cambridge, from the shop by the ramp of the Elsenham Down platform.
- ?one? Railway

Records and Information

? At Elsenham, and elsewhere as appropriate, the reporting arrangements for safety related events recorded in the crossing keepers? occurrence book should be reviewed.
- Network Rail

? Existing or planned risk assessment procedures for footpath crossings at stations should be reviewed to ensure that local factors which motivate crossing misuse are properly taken into account.
- Network Rail

RSSB has issued a full copy of the report to each member of the Railway Group and the other organisations involved in the accident. All recipients of the report need to review the findings and recommendations and take actions where appropriate to address identified deficiencies within their own systems. RSSB will track the industry's response to this

Posted on 11:08 PM | Permalink

Ireland Online: 15/05/2006

All rail services out of Cork have been cancelled this morning due to unofficial strike action by train drivers. A number of trains out of Dublin have also been affected.

The stoppage follows a failed attempt between unions and management to avert the action during talks yesterday.

The drivers had warned that they would not operate new inter-city trains on the Cork/Dublin and Cork/Tralee routes as part of a dispute over pay.

The strike action is also affecting the Cork/Cobh commuter route. Action by drivers based at Inchicore in Dublin has also affected a number of services out of Dublin.

A spokesperson for Iarn?ireann says the company will not re-enter talks with the drivers until they end their stoppage and return to work.

The following services from Cork have been cancelled:
05.30hrs Cork - Heuston
05.45hrs Cork - Cobh
05.50hrs Cork - Tralee
05.50hrs Tralee - Cork operated to Mallow only
07.00hrs Cork - Dublin
The following services from Heuston Station have been cancelled:
06.15hrs Heuston - Portlaoise
06.35hrs Heuston - Newbridge
07.00hrs Heuston - Cork
07.10hrs Heuston - Galway
07.30hrs Newbridge - Heuston
07.41hrs Portlaoise - Heuston
Further information is available from the Iarnr?ireann Information Line 1850 366 222.

See also:

Rail services from Heuston Station cancelled

RTE News: 15 May 2006

Iarnr?ireann has cancelled all rail services from Heuston Station in Dublin because of a dispute with drivers over the introduction of new trains.

Trains from Cork and Tralee are also affected.

The company took the decision after it said two drivers in Cork refused to operate the new trains this morning.

The drivers have not been suspended but the company says it has told them they will not be paid until they operate the new trains.

It is understood that a number of other drivers are now refusing to work in support of their colleagues.

Posted on 08:20 AM | Permalink

The Guardian: May 15, 2006
Andrew Clark, transport correspondent

The novelist Nina Bawden has settled for compensation of nearly £1m from the railway industry over the Potters Bar train crash, in which her husband was killed and she was seriously injured.

Network Rail and its former maintenance contractor Jarvis agreed to the payout three weeks before Ms Bawden was due to pursue her claim in court.

Ms Bawden's husband, Austen Kark, was among seven people who died as a result of the incident in May 2002, when the rear carriages of a train from London to King's Lynn derailed at 97mph over faulty points and hurtled into a bridge before coming to a halt across the platforms of Potters Bar station

The novelist, 81, has campaigned for those responsible to be brought to justice. She has written a book, Dear Austen, which contains an attack on the profit-driven culture of the privatised railways.

She told the Guardian the settlement was "almost certainly less than the annual payment to Jarvis's chief executive". She said: "I think they decided that having this pathetic figure limping into the witness box was going to create too many bad headlines for them."

Posted on 08:08 AM | Permalink

Railway Market magazine: April 2006

Interview with Mr. Zoltan Kazatsay, Deputy Director General, DG TREN, European Commission. 

The interview was published in the Special Edition of Railway Market magazine. Soon the Special Edition - entitled Polish Railway Market - will be available for download from www.railway-market.pl. Contact us to receive a printed copy. (Note: the views expressed in this article are those of the author, are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission.)

 
Q: How would you characterize the current condition of the railway sector in Poland, also in a broader context of Central and Eastern European markets and Poland's complying with EU policy requirements?

A: Poland's rail system is the third largest in Europe, but in terms of quality of assets and services provided, the country's standards are behind those of most western European countries. Since the fall of the communist regime in Poland rail traffic performance has been deteriorating significantly. In rail freight transport, performance has declined strongly in the 1990s but has been relatively stable in the past four years as decreases in domestic traffic have been compensated by increases in cross-border transport also as a result of market opening in international rail freight transport. Rail passenger traffic has been in constant decline since the beginning of the 1990s mainly due to insufficient service quality, the lack of compensation for public services obligations and a sharp increase of the degree of motorisation in Poland.
 
Barriers to an improvement of the competitiveness and performance of the Polish railway sector appear to be the slow progress of the restructuring of PKP and its low productivity as well as the very high level of track access charges. The high charges reflect an unbalance in the financing of the railway sector which has to compete with a low level of road user costs. At the same time the quality of the Polish rail infrastructure and terminals as well as stations is still poor hampering the provision of good quality transport services to passengers and freight customers. The Commission considers that a strategic long-term plan for the railway network needs to be developed to identify the appropriate size and structure of the network the Polish railway sector needs to cater for future transport demand.
 
Q: In the Liberalisation Index performed by IBM and DB in 2004 Poland was ranked 11th in Europe - far ahead of other countries from the region. How do we do now in the scope of complying with the European transport policy?
 
A: Since the railway sector has been opened up to domestic railway undertakings in 2003 market entry has occurred and a certain level of competition has developed on the rail freight market. The market share, expressed in tonne km of private rail freight undertakings has been rising to 5%-6% in 2004. However, PKP Cargo and other cargo carriers of the PKP group still dominate the market and own most of the service facilities needed to provide rail freight transport services. In passenger transport PKP and its subsidiaries have almost 100% of the market. Although the responsibility for organising regional transport has been transferred to regional authorities, insufficient public funds to compensate for public service obligations and the few public tenders for transport service contracts failed to attract significant new entrants competing with PKP companies. Additionally, the close relationship between the infrastructure manager PKP PLK and the railway undertakings within the PKP holding group may dissuade many potential market newcomers who fear that commercially sensitive information may be passed on by PKP PLK to their PKP competitors. An improvement of the financial and institutional framework is needed to make market entry more attractive.
 
Q: What is the scale of financial support Polish railways can expect in the forthcoming years?
 
A: The objective of improving railway infrastructure is mainly to improve passenger services between and within agglomerations. Modernisation of railway services consists in the upgrading of railway lines connecting the largest metropolitan areas.

Some of these lines belong to the Trans European Network for Transport (TEN-T) and are financed under the Cohesion Fund or TEN-T and other lines are outside the TEN-T network, and their modernisation will be co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The amount of funds budgeted enables the improvement of infrastructure along one line, for instance the railway line No. 1 between Warsaw and L?, a large-scale project.
 
Another measure to modernise rail transport in Poland consists in purchasing modern rolling stock for regional and commuter transport services, and rolling stock for interoperable international transport.
 
In the 2004-2006 period the main source of funding for the TEN-T was the Cohesion Fund with an allocation of ? 1.867 Million and a similar amount was available from the ERDF for the same period. The actual proposed allocations for the period 2007-2013 for transport and environment are ? 18.928 Million for the Cohesion Fund and ? 2.348 Million for the ERDF.
 
Q: From the EU's point of view, what problems have to be solved in Poland in the firts place in the rail sector ? Do you consider cross-subsidising to be still a difficult matter in Poland?
 
A: It is very important that the financial restructuring of the Polish railway systems makes swift progress so that the system becomes financially sustainable. The infrastructure manager PKP PLK features a constant negative financial result which is due to the high maintenance costs for an extensive, unprofitable network, a lack of public support and the bad financial condition of PKP group companies which have problems to pay their track access charges. The Commission encourages the Polish authorities to adopt a strategic plan for the development of the rail infrastructure in view of identifying what rail network they would like to finance in the future with what resources. Ideally, a consequence of that policy should also be to gradually enable the infrastructure manager to reduce track access charges in particular for rail freight transport, thereby improving the competitiveness of rail compared to competing transport modes.
 
Cross-subsidisation of passenger services with profits from freight services is still a common practice within the PKP group. It is crucial that the Polish authorities put in place a framework ensuring that the regions receive adequate funding from the state budget to compensate fully the regional passenger services obligations they contract out to rail service providers. Full compensation is likely to improve the attractiveness of market entry and thus facilitating private investment dearly needed, in particular in modern rolling stock.
 
Q: One of the most important problems in passenger sector in Poland is related to the age and condition of Poland's rolling stock fleet. In 2005 CEE railways' CEOs and Community of European Railways and Infrastructure Managers met with DG TREN's Fran?s Lamoureux to discuss possibilities for supporting rolling stock purchases for the CEE region. He agreed that it's a major issue. What are DG TREN's plans regarding help in financing rolling stock purchases in the region?
 
A: After the meeting in July 2005 between Mr. Lamoureux and CEOs of railway companies from Central and Eastern European countries the Commission services organised a workshop on the financing of rolling stock in September 2005. The workshop discussed a Working Document on the issue developing some broad principles and eligibility criteria.
 
a) The Commission intends to encourage rolling stock investment operations that fit into clear strategies of Member States aiming at the restructuring of their rail systems. Their strategies should be part of a more general approach to transport policy and the relationship between the transport modes and should take into account the actual situation on the market for the various segments of rail services at national and EU level.
Additionally, beneficiary railway undertakings should be able to supply precise business plans in support of their investment project reflecting a commitment to work towards an improvement in the quality of the rail transport service in question.
 
b) With its policy of rolling stock support the Commission intends to encourage the implementation of Community legislation and compliance with the guiding principles of EU policies: rail interoperability, safety, environmental protection and the application of the legislation concerning public procurements. This must be, for instance, reflected in the characteristics of the rolling stock purchased or renewed (technical specifications) and in the purchasing procedures. The Commission will be attentive to the development of a second hand market for rolling stock to promote the emergence of new market operators.
 
c) What should be the guiding principles for the co-financing of rolling stock?
 
- Aid for the financing of passenger rolling stock will be granted as a matter of priority in the context of a genuine public service contract, preferably subject to tendering.
 
- The support should encourage the modernisation or retrofitting of passenger  rolling stock in order to improve interoperability (e.g. through multi current systems, ETCS) and environmental performance (e.g. through anti pollution or anti noise measures). The aid could then only relate to a portion of the additional cost generated by such equipment.
 
d) These principles will be developed and defined in the guidelines on state aids in the railway sector that the Commission intends to present this year.
 
Q: Poland is preparing its infrastructure to comply with the European standards. Major investments on key corridors are in progress. Soon Poland's national infrastructure will achieve the standards comparable with other European networks. How do you evaluate the developments in the Polsih infrastructure?
 
Rail infrastructure development in Poland can be characterised by a rather fragmented perspective. This is partly the consequence of the lack of a long-term market-driven service strategy underpinning the development of rail transport in the country. Whilst the upgrade projects currently on-going or in the stage of planning will lead to a significant improvement of the operational performance of the major rail routes, they may not be ambitious or coherent enough to ensure a sustainable competition between rail and other modes of transport in the medium-to-long term.

Competitiveness of rail will require a departure from outdated business models and operational practices towards the creation of innovative services that can bring a whole range of new customers to railways. However, infrastructure projects as currently developed are mostly centred on providing incremental enhancements to traditional service models which have already widely demonstrated their limitations and shortcomings. 

This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that most of the upgrading work happens to be restricted to the traditional railway infrastructure assets (e.g. civil engineering works, track, power supply, conventional signalling) instead of being targeted at advanced operational and information systems that could, on one hand, optimise the utilisation of the capital-intensive  infrastructure assets (e.g. through better traffic management and maintenance) and, on the other hand, contribute to step-changes in the enhancement of the quality of customer service (e.g. through creating value-added services such as the provision of real-time pre-trip and on-trip information to customers). Finally, current implementation of infrastructure projects in Poland is still far from following what can be considered as "best-practice".
Planning and tendering procedures are cumbersome and time consuming, impacted by red tape and by a lack of robust and responsive project management structures which often results in projects being affected by considerable cost and time overheads. This is a major challenge to be overcome if Polish rail is to make effective use of Structural Funds for the period 2007-2013 as an opportunity for the renaissance of rail transport in the country.   
 
Q:There are little chances that Poland will soon introduce some major ERTMS implementations. But the success of the whole undertaking requires large scale ERTMS implementations throughout Europe to achieve the critical mass. Do you think we should speed up the debate over interoperability and ERTMS especially?
 
A: First of all, let me say that I am positive about the introduction of ERTMS in Poland. A national migration plan is being drafted, a trial site for GSM-R is being developed, Poland participates in the studies on the implementation of ERTMS on major rail corridors, such as Duisburg-Warszawa-Terespol. These are positive signals as regards a step by step introduction of ERTMS in Poland.
 
These positive signals are echoed in Europe and all actors are fully aware that technical barriers to interoperability are continuing to hamstring rail competitiveness, while road transport is free to develop without such barriers. The question is now to define the most cost effective way to achieve a gradual transition from the existing situation to the final situation when compliance with the interoperability specifications will be the norm.
 
Over the last few years, we have taken different initiatives to reach this common objective, such as the adoption of the Directive on the interoperability of the conventional rail network, the subsequent adoption of technical specifications for the interoperability and the establishment of the European Rail Agency.
 
As regards ERTMS, we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the rail sector on a rapid deployment of ERTMS. We have appointed a European Coordinator last summer. Call for tenders can now be launched on the basis of stable specifications. I would encourage the rail sector to seize swiftly this unique window of opportunity as European financial support, in particular as rolling stock retrofitting is concerned, will be concentrated on a short period of time.
 
Meeting the interoperability requirements has also become a prerequisite for applying for EU funds in all rail related projects. We believe that these recent initiatives will boost the interoperability of the Trans European Network in general and the deployment of ERTMS in particular. The efficiency of these recent initiatives will however have to be assessed. It is therefore foreseen that the European Rail Agency issues in 2007 a report on the progress achieved with interoperability.
 
Q: Still one of our key problems concerns transit cargo flows. East - West transport through Poland serves only approx. 4% of loads. How does EU perceive this problem and what is there still to?
 
A: There is a great potential for increasing rail freight transport on the east - west transit corridor through Poland. For instance, foreign trade between Russia and the European Union is increasing by 11% annually. However, 80% of the transport over the land route is carried out on the road. This clearly calls on the railway sector and public authorities to improve the performance of rail freight traffic on this axis. Important infrastructure improvements have already been made on rail corridor II linking Berlin via Warsaw with Moscow partly financed by Community funds but efforts have to be continued.
 
The performance of railway undertakings providing international services has to be enhanced further in terms of speed and reliability, reducing for instance the time needed to carry out hand-over formalities at border crossings. The envisaged introduction of a common consignment note according to CIM and SMGS rules in September 2006 is likely to facilitate the cross-over of trains from the zone of COTIF rules to the zone of OSJD rules at the border between Poland with Belarus. An EU-Russia working group on land transport has been set up in February 2006 providing an opportunity to address measures to facilitate East - West rail transport.

Posted on 01:22 PM | Permalink

Financial Times: May 13 2006
By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent

The main private contractor on London's Underground is not working hard enough to improve its performance, the network's operator has said after rail safety inspectors ordered Metronet to improve track on the District line.

London Underground Limited, the publicly-owned company that operates trains and staffs stations on the Underground system, was speaking after a day when trains on parts of the network maintained by Metronet were delayed by speed restrictions necessary be-cause the private consortium had not treated track correctly after maintenance work.

The track had not been correctly stretched - a process known as stressing - after being put in place, and there were fears it could buckle in yesterday's heat and cause a derailment.

Posted on 08:49 AM | Permalink

Financial Times: May 13 2006
By Tyler Brule

Rewind 34 years and you would have found me wearing a train driver's cap, stripy overalls, rubber boots and gardening gloves.

I would have been sitting on top of a big green tricycle with a stripy seat and hitched on to the back of my three-wheeler would have a been a red wagon carrying everything a Trans-Canadian train engineer would need - teddy bear, patchwork security blanket, a couple of Richard Scarry books and maybe tools from the garden shed to lay some extra track.

Our driveway in Winnipeg circa 1971 was a hub of rail activity and, depending on my mood, you could have seen passenger carriages roaring through (I also played conductor) or extra long freight trains if I could find enough extra wagons to tow.

I've always had a healthy interest in rail travel that's come close to, but never crossed the line into, trainspotter territory.

As much as I like the platypus features of the latest Japanese bullet train or the Swiss railway's vintage, dark green, tobacco-scented passenger carriages, I stop short of going out of my way to sample inaugural rail services or to fill scrapbooks with ticket stubs, sugar sachets and other such memorabilia.

That said, I did find myself going to extraordinary lengths on Tuesday to get the press office at Deutsche Bahn to drop everything and give me a sneak preview of their new station in Berlin. Other business brought me to the capital but I managed to find an hour to see what Deutsche Bahn, after 10 years of construction, got for its ?10bn.

The headline is that it buys you a working model of Germany at its best - engineering, logistics, architecture, technology and infrastructure all under a massive glass roof. That the whole station happens to be on the doorstep of the Reichstag, the Chancellor's residence and the Swiss embassy is no accident. For Germany's Federal ministers it's a confident symbol of modernity and public service; for Chancellor Angela Merkel it's a showplace for visiting heads of state to marvel at; and for the Swiss it's a reminder that they're not the only ones in Europe who know how to run a railway network.

Berlin's Hauptbahnhof, which opens officially on May 26, looks more like a temple to transport than a structure that might actually get involved with the gritty business of handling trains, selling tickets and dispensing fast food.

Its slightly stand-offish appearance has a lot to do with the fact that there's nothing around the massive glass and steel structure - no take-away stands offering Wurst, no Porno-kinos, no Sonnenstudios, no two-star hotels, just a dusty, for the moment un-landscaped, plain.

It's this lack of street life or bustle around the station that makes it feel oddly isolated from the rhythm of the rest of city. A master plan will eventually see some much-needed buildings go up around the structure to persuade the sceptics that the station is actually at the heart of the city and not literally in the middle of nowhere.

"It will take a few years to persuade Berliners that this station is exactly where it should be," says Deutsche Bahn.

Built to serve north-south and east-west traffic, the station - designed by architects von Gerkan, Marg und Partner - borrows a considerable amount of inspiration from both Europe's grand railway stations and its better designed airports. There are also more than 80 shops, restaurants and services, suggesting that DB spent a lot of time with managers from Japan Railways looking at mixed-use opportunities in, above and around stations. The station will eventually handle over 1,000 trains a day and will rank as Europe's biggest rail crossing hub with north and southbound traffic using eight tracks on the lower level and east and westbound traffic cutting through the station on suspended tracks that hang above the main plaza and mezzanine for shops and services.

Deutsche Bahn has positioned itself as one of the world's biggest champions of cross-mobility, allowing connections with other forms of transport. At the new station, this means DB bicycles will be available to rent to ensure you can get to a meeting on time, tour boats will have a dedicated jetty, there's a car rental facility and connections to S-Bahns, U-Bahns and buses.

There's a grand gala opening scheduled to launch the station at the end of the month. I hope Germany will use the opportunity to not only impress football fans who'll be putting the station through its paces during the World Cup but also to invite their peers from elsewhere in the railway world. Hopefully Britain's track, rolling stock and station operators will accept the invitation and take home a carriage full of pointers and inspiration.

Posted on 08:46 AM | Permalink

Railnews: 12 May 2006

PRIME Minister Tony Blair has stressed the need for a long-term strategy for Britain's railways, including the London Crossrail project, following his cabinet reshuffle.

Of "particular urgency" Mr Blair also wants the Department for Transport to contribute "fully" to future energy policy.

In a letter dated 10 May to Douglas Alexander, setting out the main objectives for his new Transport Secretary, Mr Blair says: "We need to develop a clear-long term strategy for the Future of Rail by summer 2007, including an assessment of future investment levels, how we can continue to improve rail performance, and options for increasing capacity in the network."

And the Prime Minister adds: "We need to ensure that we have identified a clear way forward on Crossrail, consistent with sensible handling of the Bill currently before Parliament."

In his letter, Tony Blair says he is asking all Secretaries of State to identify the key challenges for their Departments and how they propose to deliver against these.

"By the end of June I would welcome your preliminary assessment of key challenges for your Department, including the key milestones and risks in each area, and the main actions you propose to meet these challenges.

"As a first step, I would be grateful if you come back to me by the end of May on how you have allocated responsibility for key transport issues and objectives among your Ministerial team."

"EFFICIENT AND RELIABLE TRANSPORT SYSTEM IS ESSENTIAL"

The Prime Minister's letter states: "An efficient and reliable transport system is essential for our economy and future competitiveness. This is why we have committed to record levels of investment in transport by 2015 in DfT's long-term spending guideline. The results of this investment are evident.

"More people are travelling by rail than at any time in the past 40 years, while performance is back at pre-Hatfield levels and continues to improve. Thirty five major road schemes have been completed since 2001 and we have seen progress in bus travel in recent years.

"We need to continue to build on this record. But we also need to demonstrate that we are addressing the fundamental challenges ahead for transport.

"As the population grows, and we become more wealthy, our demand for travel is increasing. Many parts of our road and rail network are already under severe pressure especially at peak times. While we have set out clear plans for future investment, constraints on public expenditure mean we cannot simply build our way out of these problems.

"And the benefits transport can deliver must also be measured against its impact on the environment; in particular transport will be critical to our long-term goal of reducing carbon emissions.

"The key over-arching challenge for you therefore is to ensure that we have a clear policy for the future which sets out how our long-term transport strategy supports economic growth and development, meets the public need for transport and is consistent with our environmental goals.

"In developing this you will want to build on the work Rod Eddington is doing on priorities for investment in transport infrastructure. You will also need to work closely in particular with David Miliband (DEFRA), Alistair Darling (DTI), and Ruth Kelly (Communities & Local Government) to ensure that our transport strategy is consistent with government policies in relation to the environment, energy and housing. Of particular urgency will be ensuring that DfT has contributed fully to the Energy Review, which reports in June."

The Prime Minister also warns there will be less cash available: "Your future plans will of course need to be set against the background of lower growth in funding than in recent years. This means the Zero Based and Efficiency Reviews currently underway, combined with Departmental Capability Reviews, will be a critical input and I would like you to give these your personal attention to ensure that the Department's spending is effective and fit for purpose as we move forward."

Posted on 08:41 AM | Permalink

Armenia Liberty: 11, May 2006
By Astghik Bedevian

Armenia, Georgia and Russia have formally agreed to reopen a Soviet-era railway that used to be vital for the two South Caucasus nations' commercial exchange with the outside world, a government-connected Armenian parliamentarian claimed on Thursday.

Vladimir Badalian, who also co-heads a Georgian-Armenian business association, told RFE/RL that an agreement to restore the rail link was signed by senior representatives of the state-run railways of the three countries as well as Abkhazia after four days of negotiations in Moscow late last week.

Direct rail communication between Georgia and Russia was disrupted with the outbreak of the war in Abkhazia in 1992, stripping Armenia of its last relatively cheap conduit to the former Soviet Union and Europe. Russian-led efforts to restore the transport link have been seriously hampered by the unresolved the state of the Abkhaz conflict.

They appeared to have made substantial progress two years ago, leading Russia's Transport Minister Igor Levitin to declare in December 2004 that the restoration of rail traffic through Abkhazia is on the cards. Around that time the Armenian and Russian railway chiefs announced plans to set up a joint venture that would handle renewed rail communication between their countries.

But with the already strained Russian-Georgian relations subsequently deteriorating further, Levitin's optimism proved misplaced. Those relations hit a new low last month with Moscow?s controversial decision to ban imports of Georgian wine and mineral water and Tbilisi?s threats to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States. Neither government has reported any agreements on the railway over the past week.

According to Badalian, about $200 million in investments is needed to rebuild its damaged Abkhaz section. The interested parties will therefore take at least two years to make the railway operational, he said.

The absence of railway communication with the outside world is widely seen as the main reason for the disproportionately high cost of transporting goods to and from Armenia. Economists say that in turn is a major obstacle to a more rapid growth of the Armenian economy.

Posted on 08:37 AM | Permalink

New Era: May 12, 2006
Wezi Tjaronda (Windhoek)

The Morupule Colliery Mine in Botswana, which has been encountering problems with transporting its product to outside markets, is pinning its hopes on the planned electric railway line to be constructed by a consortium of companies that includes Namibian Falcon Resources Holdings.

Being a land-locked country, Botswana finds it difficult to place its coal on the market, where it would compete with the product from South Africa, which has its own ports.

In the next 10 to 20 years, the centre of coal gravity will shift from South Africa to Botswana, which has 212 billion tonnes of coal.

Once the railway is built, it will facilitate exports to other countries such as in Europe, and China and India where the market still exists for coal, said Cletus Tangane, Mine Manager of Morupule Colliery Limited yesterday from Botswana. Debtswana Diamond Company owns the Morupule Colliery.

"If the Trans Kalahari Railway could be developed, we could use the Walvis Bay Harbour for our exports," he said. Although there is an alternative, Richards Bay in the Eastern Cape in South Africa, it is far away.

Three South African companies, namely Sekunjalo, Kumba Resources, and Siemens Transportation Systems and one Canadian company, Energem Resources have teamed up with Namibia Falcon Resources to form Falcon Resources Holdings to construct an electrified heavy haul railway line and to develop a deep water harbour at Shearwater Bay.

The companies have formed a consortium, to construct a US$1-billion Trans Kalahari Railway line linking Morupule and Shearwater Bay, 30 km south of L?z.

The railway line, said Tangane, would open up traffic, as it will join the east coast and west coast of Africa.

Tangane said the mine management have been in consultation with Falcon Resources mainly for the use of the railway for coal exports, taking into consideration that one of the projects will be a deep-water harbour.

President Hifikepunye Pohamba and his Botswana counterpart, Festus Mogae a few weeks ago discussed the need to construct a railway line between the two countries. Tangane also mentioned that Botswana's Assistant Finance Minister recently signed a loan agreement with the Chinese government, which is interested in the project.

Meanwhile, the Falcon Resources Holdings will next week make a final submission to the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communication for presentation to Cabinet for the two countries, Namibia and Botswana, to amend the Trans Kalahari Memorandum of Understanding for it to include a railway line.

The railway line will start from Morupule Colliery in north east central of Botswana and pass through Namibia's new coalmine situated 60 km south of Aranos and end up at the natural harbour, Shearwater Bay.

The 1 600-km long line over the Kalahari will address import and export constraints of products and minerals from Namibia's hinterland countries, namely Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It will also give rail transportation to other provinces of South Africa, namely Limpopo, Gauteng and Northern Cape.

In Botswana, the railroad will connect Palapye, which is directly linked with Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, through Francistown in the north and with Mafikeng in South Africa through Lo-batse.

The railway line will come through Morupule and Kang in Botswana, and Mariental, Maltahohe and Aus and end at the deep-water harbour.

It is envisaged that the new railway line will greatly increase the competitiveness of goods produced in SADC countries for distribution to regional and international markets.

The port will provide the countries with shorter distances for cargo destined to the Americas and Europe, while providing access to private company importers and exporters and mining houses, and guaranteeing access to mining companies of resource cargo such as copper, zinc, coal, iron ore, manganese and crude and refined oil products

Posted on 08:31 AM | Permalink

BBC News: 12 May 2006

Almost £60m is to be spent on upgrading the historic Settle-to-Carlisle rail line over five years.

The Settle to Carlisle railway will be shut for nine days

Network Rail says the plan will see improvements to the entire 113 miles of the North Yorkshire to Cumbria route.

The line will close for nine days from Saturday, until 21 May, as preparations for the £58m project are made.

More than 11,300 yards of track will be replaced, and almost 5,000 sleepers which hold the tracks in place. Replacement buses will be in service.

The improvements will be made during three separate periods including from Saturday and in July and December this year.

The route is mainly used by freight trains, many carrying coal from Scotland to power stations in the Aire and Trent valleys, however the line is also used by passenger trains.

Posted on 08:16 AM | Permalink

BBC News: 12 May 2006

An inquiry into the deaths of two girls on a level crossing last December has ordered a safety review at locations where pedestrians cross the tracks.

It is believed the teenagers were on their way to catch a train

Olivia Bazlinton, 14, and Charlotte Thompson, 13, died when they were hit by a train at Elsenham station, Essex.

The Rail Safety and Standards Board report said the girls ignored crossing warnings and ran onto the tracks.

But it said if they had not had to go to another platform to buy their tickets the risk would have been less.

The report did not recommend a footbridge should be built as the cost, it said, would be unsupportable.

It is believed the two girls ignored red warning lights and crossed the tracks to catch a Cambridge-bound train when they were hit by a through-train heading from Birmingham New Street to Stansted Airport.

Posted on 08:10 AM | Permalink

TUC Risks: 29 April 2006

Strike action by more than 750 RMT platform station staff and guards at newly re-privatised South Eastern Trains was averted this week after the company withdrew cuts in platform staff and agreed to honour a pledge to staff certain 'high risk' stations.

More than 400 platform station staff had voted by more than six to one for action against the imposition of new working arrangements that would have reduced station staff numbers. Some 350 guards had also voted for action after the company said it would not fulfil a commitment to gate and staff a number of high risk stations.

The company this week withdrew the cuts proposal and agreed to revert to previous platform station staff rosters and staffing levels. The company has also agreed to provide additional security at five stations.

'Our members made it clear that imposing station staff cuts and reneging on a pledge to staff high risk stations were not acceptable,' RMT general secretary Bob Crow said.

'The company has now responded positively to our members' concerns and the RMT executive has withdrawn the threat of strike action. We welcome the company's commitment to establish crime and security committees and to monitor and work actively to reduce assaults.' He added: 'Rail workers and passengers alike have the right to go about their business in safety, and we hope the company will now accept that cutting frontline safety critical staff is counter-productive.'

Posted on 12:02 AM | Permalink

Newcastle Evening Chronicle: May 10 2006
By Peter Young

A union leader today criticised departing transport boss Mike Parker and called for a rethink about the future of the Metro.

Stan Herschel, regional organiser of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union, said he is concerned about the possible privatisation of the railway.

After 12 years as director general of Nexus, Mr Parker, 58, is leaving in August for the private sector.

One of the biggest schemes he leaves behind is the £500m Orpheus project to modernise the 26-year-old railway and Mr Herschel said his departure is an opportunity to reconsider the scheme.

However, Coun David Wood, chairman of the Tyne & Wear Passenger Transport Authority (PTA), jumped to Mr Parker's defence today, saying public transport is in much better shape than when he arrived.

The PTA is seeking Government cash to pay for Orpheus but is also exploring the possibility of taking on private partners to help fund the scheme.

Mr Herschel, who has frequently clashed with Mr Parker over the years, said: "I can't say I'm shedding any tears about his departure.

"The Metro has been cut to the bone and is now heading towards privatisation, which has proved to be a disaster elsewhere.

"That is Mr Parker's legacy. my hope is that whoever comes in will sit down with unions and politicians."

Mr Herschel said the Metro needs to be modernised and he accepted that large-scale investment is needed, but is against any move which would hand over control of the railway and the workforce to the private sector.

"I will not sit idly by and watch the private sector take control of pay, pensions and working conditions," he warned.

Under Mr Parker's leadership, the Metro has been extended to Sunderland and there's been massive investment in new stations and security measures, as well as high-quality bus routes.

Coun Wood said: "I think Mike Parker has been very good for transport in the region and he will be a hard act to follow. Public transport in the area, including the Metro, is in far better shape than when he arrived."

Coun Wood added: "If Mr Herschel can suggest a way of raising the money we will listen."

Metro operator Nexus denied Mr Herschel's claim that there have been cuts on the Metro.

Expansion in the last 10 years includes the new Northumberland Park station, modernisation of Pelaw, a three-minute service through central Newcastle, and interchanges at Gateshead and Four Lane Ends.

"Employment has been increased and wages have steadily gone up," said a spokesman.

"Nexus is now seeking ways to deliver an improved Metro system for the next 25 years. Given the huge costs, it is unlikely the Government will fully fund the project, so we are starting a consultation exercise with potential partners in the transport industry."

Posted on 11:54 PM | Permalink

Dan Zukowski: May 2006

A repainted GG1 electric locomotive hauls an eastbound Amtrak train of hand-me-down passenger cars through Darien, Conn. in 1973.

When I turned 35, I had a big birthday bash. It was a time to celebrate accomplishments, reflect on the past and plan for the future. Today, Amtrak becomes 35, but they are hoping no one will notice.

May 1, 1971 was, at the time, a dark day for train riders. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation?s first action was to slash in half the number of passenger trains to be operated across the country. Santa Fe?s famed San Francisco Chief to Chicago was discontinued and Union Pacific?s City of Los Angeles departed the city of angels one last time. The country mourned the loss of old friends such as the Panama Limited, Denver Zephyr, and the North Coast Limited. The Manhattan Limited made its final run and the Midnight Special shined its ever-lovin? light one last time.

John Volpe, the transportation secretary under President Nixon who steered the creation of Amtrak, saw passenger rail as part of a balanced investment in transportation. Although handicapped from the start by under-capitalization and unrealistic expectations of financial self-sufficiency, Amtrak has nevertheless been able to increase ridership and introduce new trains. In the Northeast Corridor, 150-mile-per-hour Acela Express trains are taking market share from airlines. Recently refurbished Superliners give riders on the Empire Builder a spectacular ride through the Northern Rockies. Car-obsessed California has some of the finest intercity trains in the country. Ridership is setting new records in that state, as well as in Illinois and the Pacific Northwest.

Yet, Amtrak remains a target for critics. Many long-distance trains run late due to increasing congestion on the freight railroads they have to travel. Maintenance has fallen behind in the heavily-traveled Northeast Corridor, and the need for federal support remains a sore point for many in Congress and the White House. Last year, President Bush tried to zero out its budget, a tactic repeated from the Reagan and Bush-senior administrations.

Nevertheless, government has long supported transportation in the United States, from canal-building and railroad land grants to construction of Interstate highways, airports and the national air traffic control system. That?s appropriate, because transportation benefits our economy and our mobility.

Any discussion of Amtrak must include a discussion of its direct and indirect economic benefits. Train ridership eases highway congestion, cuts fuel consumption and reduces emissions. A strong national passenger rail network would provide an option for business and leisure travelers in this time of high fuel costs and congested skies.

Unfortunately, the U.S. is far behind competing economies in enjoying the efficiencies of rail travel. China has just announced an investment of $22 billion to build two high-speed rail lines, one of which is an extension of the world?s first commercial train using magnetic-levitation technology. Korea is building a 180 mile-per-hour corridor from Seoul to Busan and Mokpo. Russia intends to build a high-speed line from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Italy and Spain are also investing in new high-speed trains.

Three actions are necessary for the U.S. to catch up with our competition.

First, Congressional action is needed to eliminate Amtrak?s annual Capitol Hill street-corner begging. By an overwhelming, bipartisan 96-3 vote last year, the Senate passed a six-year funding plan which would give the railroad financial stability. That legislation now needs to be taken up by the House of Representatives and signed by the president. If the White House is serious about Amtrak reform, it must give the railroad the necessary resources to do so.

Secondly, under Amtrak?s Strategic Reform Initiatives, if approved by Congress, capital investments for corridor services would be based on an 80/20 federal-state matching program similar to highway projects. Currently, unlike highways and airports, there is no federal matching program for intercity passenger rail.

Finally, more public/private partnerships are required to alleviate the serious capacity constraints facing the nation?s rail system. Freight railroads are bursting at the seams with international container traffic and are investing billions in added track, improved signaling and more crews just to keep up. Lack of capacity often prevents state rail planners from adding commuter and intercity passenger trains. The Union Pacific railroad refuses to even consider additional services on its lines in California.

Passenger rail has climbed out of the darkness, but America?s lopsided transportation policy has made it impossible for Amtrak to become the ?standard for the world? that John Volpe once hoped.

For my part, I?m going to celebrate with an old friend. I?m getting on a train today ? the one Arlo Guthrie sang about ? and I?m riding it to New Orleans. Both the train, and the city, belong to America. And they both need our attention.

Posted on 11:36 PM | Permalink

RMT: May 11 2006

FERRY OPERATOR Stena was today warned by maritime union RMT that it must stick to its pay agreement on its Holyhead operations or face the prospect of a strike ballot.

The union's shipping and docks conference in Hull today heard that Stena intended to break its national agreement by paying Polish crew aboard the Stena Seatrader at rates below those paid to UK ratings when the vessel begins operating between Holyhead and Dublin in July.

Delegates unanimously called on the RMT executive to begin an emergency campaign "at all levels" to defend the port agreement, including urgent approaches for assistance to sister unions through the International Transport Workers' Federation.

"We have an agreement with Stena that sets out the rates that must be paid to ratings working out of Holyhead, and we expect them to stick to it," RMT national secretary Steve Todd said.

"The Irish Sea has become the latest battleground in the struggle to stop shipowners replacing organised crews with low-cost labour, and Stena are now breaking their pledge that they will not join the "race to the bottom" in seafarers' pay.

"The introduction of low-cost crew to Holyhead is the thin end of a massive wedge which threatens to undermine the jobs, pay and conditions of ratings at Holyhead and beyond.

"The nationality the seafarers aboard the vessel is irrelevant, but they must be paid the rate for the job agreed between the company and the union.

"There is massive anger among the crews of the Explorer and Adventurer, the two Stena vessels already operating out of the port, and we have already had calls to start balloting for strike action.

"Stena should understand that we will take the necessary steps to defend our national agreement, and that RMT will back industrial action by our members if it becomes necessary," Steve Todd said.

Posted on 11:20 PM | Permalink

Legal Week: 11/05/2006

Corporate law firm Camerons has won a dual role in a 'giant' railway pension fund tender. With the rail industry on the brink of the largest national rail strike since 1926 to defend rail pensions the appointment represents interesting timing to say the very least.

CMS Cameron McKenna has emerged victorious following the decision by one of the UK?s largest pension schemes to create its first-ever legal panel.

Railpen Investments, the sixth-largest scheme in the country with around £15bn in assets and control of the railway pensions plans, this month concluded its first panel review, appointing advisers for financial services and commercial property.

The selection process for the financial services and investment advice panel was led by Railpen head of legal Stephanie Fuller, resulting in the appointment of Camerons, Nabarro Nathanson and Scots giant Maclay Murray & Spens. There was an initial shortlist of 10 firms.

The win for Nabarros follows its hire last year of Dale Gabbert, Railpen client contact and alternative investment funds partner. He joined in September from Dechert.

Following Gabbert?s hire the firm has undertaken property work for Railpen worth a total of around £800m.

A separate review of Reailpen?s property advisers confirmed Camerons and Berwin Leighton Paisner as advisers.

However Railpen has yet to put its key pensions advisory role out to tender, retaining magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus & Deringer as sole legal adviser on pensions work.

Posted on 01:38 PM | Permalink

Brand Republic: 11 May 2006
by Joe Lepper

Network Rail launches Apprentice-style recruitment drive

Network Rail: recruitment ad

LONDON - Network Rail is hoping to cash in on the success of Sir Alan Sugar's BBC Two show 'The Apprentice' for its latest recruitment campaign.

The campaign called "You're Hired", a play on Sugar's catchphrase in the show "you're fired", launches today and features national and regional press and outdoor advertising, which has been created in-house.

The creative aims to appeal to those who have never considered Network Rail, which is responsible for the running of the UK rail network, as a career move and features models in suits striking similar poses as 'The Apprentice' contestants in publicity shots.

Iain Coucher, Network Rail deputy chief executive, said: "If we want Network Rail to be world class, we have to not only train our people but attract new talent into our organisation to push us forward.

"Attracting the best people from outside the railway industry into these kinds of roles, in addition to recruiting internally where we can, will help us to grow and develop Network Rail into a world class organisation."

The launch of this latest campaign coincides with the end of the second series of 'The Apprentice', which was won last night by Michelle Dewberry.

The former Kwik Save checkout girl beat rival Ruth Badger to land a six-figure salary job with Sugar to launch his latest business venture, Xenon Green, an environmental initiative disposing of unwanted computer equipment.

However, it also coincides with a decision by rail unions representing Network Rail and train company staff to ballot on industrial action after failing to reach an agreement about pensions.

Unions want a restoration of pre-privatisation pension rights but Network Rail is holding firm describing its scheme as "sound".

Media buying was handled through Network Rail's recruitment agency AIA Recruitment.

Posted on 01:23 PM | Permalink

The Independent: 11 May 2006
By Barrie Clement, Transport Editor

The Department for Transport was warned yesterday never to allow "hope to triumph over experience" by always choosing the cheapest rail franchise bids.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee delivered a scathing attack on the now-defunct French-owned company Connex and the bodies meant to preside over its franchise in south-east England.

The report is published at a time of serious doubts over the ability of Great North Eastern Railways to fulfil its promise to pay a £1.3bn premium to the Exchequer.

Sir Richard Branson recently warned ministers he would refuse to enter a race to retain his Virgin CrossCountry franchise if the Government was interested only in a cut-price "bus run".

Edward Leigh, the chairman of the committee, said it was essential in future that the Department for Transport identify the operators most at risk from financial and operating failure and develop "an early warning system" to detect the emerging threats to the viability of franchises.

"The management and monitoring of franchises will be effective only if the responsible staff have the expertise and resolve to ask hard questions," he said.

He said the decision to award the south-eastern franchise to Connex, which had submitted the cheapest bid, had led to "myopia over what Connex could realistically deliver".

In June 2003 the Strategic Rail Authority terminated the Connex contract to "protect taxpayers' money", having provided it with £58.9m in additional subsidy. Mr Leigh said the need for such drastic action - at considerable cost to the taxpayer - should never have arisen in the first place. "There are many lessons here for the Department for Transport. It should certainly resolve never to allow hope to triumph over experience when assessing franchise bids in future," he said.

Mr Leigh said neither the SRA nor the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising, which originally awarded Connex the franchise, managed the risks. "The parties couldn't communicate properly and felt no trust in each other. The SRA was slow to realise Connex was running into money problems and Connex didn't rush to make this clear to the SRA.

"Connex became a byword for incompetence among cold and angry passengers waiting for trains that limped in late or simply didn't arrive."

The Department for Transport was warned yesterday never to allow "hope to triumph over experience" by always choosing the cheapest rail franchise bids.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee delivered a scathing attack on the now-defunct French-owned company Connex and the bodies meant to preside over its franchise in south-east England.

The report is published at a time of serious doubts over the ability of Great North Eastern Railways to fulfil its promise to pay a £1.3bn premium to the Exchequer.

Sir Richard Branson recently warned ministers he would refuse to enter a race to retain his Virgin CrossCountry franchise if the Government was interested only in a cut-price "bus run".

Edward Leigh, the chairman of the committee, said it was essential in future that the Department for Transport identify the operators most at risk from financial and operating failure and develop "an early warning system" to detect the emerging threats to the viability of franchises.

"The management and monitoring of franchises will be effective only if the responsible staff have the expertise and resolve to ask hard questions," he said.

He said the decision to award the south-eastern franchise to Connex, which had submitted the cheapest bid, had led to "myopia over what Connex could realistically deliver".

In June 2003 the Strategic Rail Authority terminated the Connex contract to "protect taxpayers' money", having provided it with £58.9m in additional subsidy. Mr Leigh said the need for such drastic action - at considerable cost to the taxpayer - should never have arisen in the first place. "There are many lessons here for the Department for Transport. It should certainly resolve never to allow hope to triumph over experience when assessing franchise bids in future," he said.

Mr Leigh said neither the SRA nor the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising, which originally awarded Connex the franchise, managed the risks. "The parties couldn't communicate properly and felt no trust in each other. The SRA was slow to realise Connex was running into money problems and Connex didn't rush to make this clear to the SRA.

"Connex became a byword for incompetence among cold and angry passengers waiting for trains that limped in late or simply didn't arrive."

Posted on 01:15 PM | Permalink

Press Association: May 11, 2006

Rail chiefs failed to detect problems early enough with a busy commuter route operator that was eventually stripped of its franchise, a report from MPs has said.

Periodic viability reviews of Connex's South Eastern franchise would have shown up the company's emerging financial difficulties more quickly, the report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said.

The travelling public suffered most as Connex "became a byword for incompetence among cold and angry passengers waiting for trains that limped in late or simply didn't arrive", said the committee's chairman Edward Leigh (Con, Gainsborough).

He added that the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF) and its successor, the now-defunct Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), had had "myopia over what Connex could realistically deliver".

Connex took over the franchise in 1996 and was sacked from it in November 2003, with the SRA taking over in the form of the South Eastern Trains company. South Eastern is now part of a new Integrated Kent franchise run by the GoVia company.

The report said neither OPRAF nor the SRA adapted their franchise monitoring to manage the associate risks of the Connex operation.

Mr Leigh said: "The parties couldn't communicate properly and felt no trust in each other. The SRA was slow to realise that Connex was running into money problems and Connex didn't rush to make this clear to the SRA.

"When further subsidies of £183 million were to be poured into Connex, there were no strings attached whatsoever."

He went on: "It is essential that, in future, the Department for Transport identify the train operating companies at greatest risk of financial and operational failure and develop an early warning system for detecting emerging threats to the viability of their franchises.

"And the management and monitoring of franchises will be effective only if the responsible staff have the expertise and resolve to ask hard questions about the financial information. In the event, the termination of the franchise and handover to South Eastern Trains in 2003 went well and, overall, passenger satisfaction increased. But the need for such drastic remedial action, at considerable cost to the taxpayer, should never have arisen in the first place."

Posted on 01:11 PM | Permalink

Bloomberg: May 9 2006

The U.K.'s railroad workers will vote on a nationwide strike in an attempt to block an increase in the contributions they make to their pensions, the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association and other labor unions said.

Unions want employers in the rail industry to make up any shortfall in the Railways Pension Scheme, which had about $25 billion of assets at the end of 2004. Higher contributions by some workers are to start on July 1, the unions said today.

The pension plan, with about 350,000 members, was valued last year and some sections showed a deficit and others a surplus, according to the Railways Pension Scheme, which refused to provide details. The pension plan is split into separate funds for more than 100 employers in the industry.

"Whether we strike or not, the idea is to put pressure on the employers and get them to sit down and talk to us,'' Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, told reporters outside parliament today.

Voting will begin on May 17 with results due by the first week of June, the unions said. The fund had 13.7 billion pounds ($24.7 billion) of assets at the end of 2004.

The overall pension plan has a deficit of between 500 million pounds and 600 million pounds, Keith Norman, general secretary of ASLEF, said in an interview. He said he's ``hopeful'' the dispute can be resolved without striking.

Meeting at Parliament

Officials of the TSSA, RMT and the ASLEF unions will meet with U.K. members of parliament this afternoon to put pressure on the government, Carmel McHenry, a spokeswoman for London-based TSSA, said in an interview.

Employers in the industry, which include Arriva Plc, Network Rail Ltd. and National Express Group Plc, make 60 percent of contributions to the plan for members still working, while employees make up the rest.

A spokeswoman for the London-based Association of Train Operating Committees, which represents the operators, declined to comment.

Contributions should be capped at 10.56 percent of pay and existing benefits kept, according to the unions, which say they have about 100,000 members working in the rail industry.

U.K. railroads, which are split into 21 franchises that the government awards to private operators, carry about 2.8 million passengers a day, according to the operators' group.

U.K. companies are tackling pension plans whose investments are no longer projected to cover the cost of paying retirees who live longer. The deficit of the pension funds of the U.K. companies in the FTSE 350 index is 78 billion pounds, according to Watson Wyatt, an employee benefits firm.

Life Expectancy

An Englishman born in 1950 is projected to live 66.4 years, according to the Office for National Statistics. That compares with 75.1 years for those born in 1997.

The Railway Pension Scheme's largest plan is for those who worked in the rail industry in 1994, and those who have joined it since are members of the so-called ``shared cost'' sections, which make up 52 percent of the assets.

The 1994 Pensioners Section, which accounts for about 48 percent of its membership and is guaranteed by the government, consists largely of those people who were pensioners when the railroads were privatized in 1994.

Posted on 08:32 AM | Permalink

The Guardian: May 10, 2006
David Hencke, Westminster correspondent

The biggest rail stoppage since the 1926 general strike could take place next month after a decision by the main rail unions to ballot tens of thousands of workers yesterday.

The ballot of staff, from train drivers to ticket office workers on all the main railway companies, including Eurostar, follows a row over the failure of some companies to open talks on pensions.

Nearly all the staff are facing a big increase in pension contributions from July 1 because some funds are in deficit and there are threats to cut pension benefits.

The Rail Maritime and Transport union, Aslef, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering unions are campaigning to ensure the railway pensions scheme remains open to all employees and that worker contributions are capped.

Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, said: "The employers have failed to give us the assurances we have been seeking to avert the pensions crisis facing us." Gerry Doherty, TSSA general secretary, added: "Sitting back and watching the potential collapse of the scheme is not an option."

A Network Rail spokesman said: "Network Rail's pension scheme is a sound and generous one, and over the last three years we have worked with our employees and the unions to increase the scheme's funding levels and this has proved to be effective."

Posted on 08:25 AM | Permalink

The Times: May 09, 2006
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

A HIGH-SPEED railway line carrying double-deck trains at 190mph between London and Scotland is being planned by Network Rail to win back millions of passengers from domestic airlines.

The Times May 09, 2006
High-speed trains to take on planes
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

A HIGH-SPEED railway line carrying double-deck trains at 190mph between London and Scotland is being planned by Network Rail to win back millions of passengers from domestic airlines.

The journey time from London to Glasgow or Edinburgh would be halved to just over 21⁄2 hours, with a train departing every 30 minutes.

The line would run via Birmingham and Manchester and sections would be built alongside the existing West Coast Main Line to minimise planning disputes.

It would connect with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in northeast London, allowing direct services in under three hours between Birmingham and Paris.

Network Rail, the public interest company created by the Government to operate Britain?s rail infrastructure, believes that the line could eliminate almost all the 45 daily flights between London and Manchester. A handful of flights would survive between Scotland and London, but only to serve passengers catching connecting flights to overseas destinations.

A combination of cheap air fares and poor train punctuality has resulted in a shift from rail to air in the past decade, with six times as many people flying from Glasgow or Edinburgh to London as catching a train.

Network Rail has previously declined to enter the debate over the expansion of the rail network, saying that it needed to focus on punctuality. But the company now admits that the need to cater for rising demand for rail travel ? up 42 per cent in the past ten years ? is the more urgent issue.

Iain Coucher, Network Rail?s deputy chief executive, presented yesterday the results of a nine-month feasibility study by the company on a new high-speed line. He said that the 420-mile line could be built for as little as £11 billion, a third of the sum envisaged by the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) in 2003.

Construction costs would be reduced by avoiding building new tracks into city centres, either by constructing ?parkway? stations on the outskirts, or by connecting in the suburbs with existing lines.

Mr Coucher said that minimising the need for tunnels and using more efficient construction techniques would cut the cost of the line to £24 million to £30 million a mile. That is still double the cost of new high-speed lines in France and Spain but allows for the added expense of compensating land owners in Britain?s more densely populated countryside. The line would be built in stages, with the London to Manchester section open in 2016 and the full route five years later.

Passengers would pay a small premium on today?s fares, but prices would have to be comparable with those offered by budget airlines. Mr Coucher said: ?Depending on the time of day, a one-way ticket between London and Scotland would cost £30 to £60. If it cost more than that, we would not get the modal shift we are seeking from planes and cars to trains.?

The taxpayer would probably have to contribute to the construction cost, justified by the benefits of regenerating regional economies.

The line would also create capacity for dozens of extra freight trains a day on the West Coast Main Line, removing thousands of lorries from congested motorways. Cutting the number of domestic flights would also ease pressure on Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted and could allow development of new runways to be deferred for several years.

But Mr Coucher gave warning that the project could be undermined by objections from cities that would not be served by the line. The SRA, abolished last year, had considered two routes: the West Coast one favoured by Network Rail and another on the East Coast via Leeds and Newcastle.

Network Rail?s proposal is likely to win support from Rod Eddington, the former British Airways chief executive, who has been commissioned by the Government to review Britain?s transport needs and is due to report this summer. Ministers are unlikely to make a commitment to any scheme before next year, when the Department for Transport publishes a 30-year strategy for Britain?s railways.

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said: ?The public are right to be highly sceptical . . . Rather than concentrate on these vague aspirations, the Government should be concentrating on delivering projects that could actually make a difference to people?s lives in the short term.?

Posted on 07:26 PM | Permalink

RMT: May 9 2006

TENS OF thousands of rail workers in dozens of infrastructure and operating companies are to be balloted for strike action after employers failed to agree unconditionally to a four-point formula to avert a pensions crisis in the industry.

Employers will begin receiving notice of ballot from today, as rail workers gather at Westminster to lobby MPs for government action to facilitate industry-wide talks. Balloting will commence from May 17, with results expected from the end of the first week in June.

Rail unions RMT, TSSA, ASLEF and engineering union CSEU are seeking employers? commitment to ensuring that the Railway Pensions Scheme remains open to all employees, capping employee contributions to a reasonable level, maintaining benefits and streamlining the 100 sections created by the fragmentation of privatisation.

The unions have long warned that agreement must be reached before unacceptably high employee-contribution increases are triggered by default on July 1. The industry now faces the prospect of the most comprehensive stoppage since the general strike 80 years ago.

?The employers have failed to give us the assurances we have been seeking to avert the pensions crisis facing us, so we to have today given notice that we will be balloting our members across the industry for strike action,? RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

?Sitting back and watching the potential collapse of the scheme is not an option, and our members have made it clear that they are prepared to strike to ensure that they don't face poverty in retirement,? said TSSA general secretary Gerry Doherty.

?We're lobbying parliament today because the government bears ultimate responsibility for the current mess in the railways pension scheme and it is they who hold the key to sorting it out,? said ASLEF general secretary Keith Norman.

?We asked Alistair Darling months ago to help get the employers around the table but got no response ? maybe his successor, Douglas Alexander, will act more urgently to head off the crisis,? said CSEU railways officer Bob Rixham.

Notes to editors:
Mass meetings of rail workers, addressed by leaders of the four unions, have been held in Manchester, Newcastle, London, Cardiff, York, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol and Perth, and a further meeting is to be held tomorrow(May 10) in Liverpool at the CASA, 29 Hope Street.

Early Day Motion 1681 in the name of John McDonnell MP and 45 others (at May 9):

"That this House is deeply alarmed at the attempts by railways employers substantially to increase employee pension contributions; notes this will not only be detrimental to rail workers' earnings but will threaten the future viability of the Railways Pension Scheme by forcing existing members to opt out, and deterring new members from joining; is concerned that rail employers are considering closing scheme sections, raising retirement ages and reducing benefits; believes the threat to rail workers' pensions is a direct result of the fragmentation of the Railways Pension Scheme and of employers taking pension holidays; strongly supports the rail unions' campaign to cap employees' contributions, maintain existing benefit rates, simplify the Railways Pension Scheme's structure and open the Scheme to all staff; and therefore urges the Government to do all within its power to protect the pensions of rail workers."

To view the EDM and current list of signatories, please visit http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=30125&SESSION=875
Railway Pension Scheme ? briefing (May 2006)

Why is there a crisis in the railway pension scheme?

Following privatisation, the Railway Pension Scheme was fragmented into a hundred different sections. There are significant deficits in many sections partly through poor financial returns but mainly as a result of the actuary changing mortality assumptions on the basis that pensioners are living longer. Another significant cause of the deficits, however, is due to the structure and exploitation of the Railway Pensions Scheme, namely,

* Professor Jean Shaoul of Manchester University has calculated that since privatisation around £800m a year has been taken out of the industry as returns to private lenders and investors. If just part of these excessive profits were re-invested in the Railway Pension Scheme then contributions would be kept to a realistic and affordable level.

* All the current railway employers have enjoyed surpluses built up during the latter BR years when thousands of railway staff left the industry in preparation for privatisation with the employers cashing in on these pension holidays. Deficits have been compounded by a number of employers closing their sections to new employees.  This has increased member contributions by an average of 1.5 per cent.

* The temporary and short term nature of railway franchises and contracts act as a disincentive for Train Operating Companies and other rail contractors from taking a long term view of Railway Pension Scheme costs.

* The fragmentation of the Railway Pension Scheme into a hundred different sections has led to one of the most complex schemes in the UK. This results in massive inefficiencies and far higher administration costs which swallows up funding which could have otherwise be used to reduce scheme contributions.

What has been the employers? and government response?

* The response of many railway employers has been to ask rail workers to make unacceptably high pension contributions, close pension schemes and to propose cuts in pension benfits.

* Since December 2005 the rail unions have written to former Transport Secretary Alistair Darling on three occasions to discuss the pensions crisis. Despite the efforts of the TUC no direct talks ever took place.

* The 100 different rail employers have refused to discuss seriously an industry wide solution to the pensions crisis. They claim it is a matter for the Government. The Government say it is an issue for the individual rail companies!

What solutions are the rail unions proposing?

Following the failure of months of negotiations, the unions are holding an industry-wide ballot for all rail workers with the following objectives.  We believe our proposals will not only benefit rail workers, but will also provide a framework for the more economical and efficient funding of the Railway Pension Scheme. An important consideration when all the railway companies and therefore the Railway Pension Scheme are ultimately dependent on government subsidy.

1. That employee contributions will not exceed 10.56 per cent. This is the rate previously payable in respect of the BR Pension Fund. This rate is above the rate necessary to buy benefits in the majority of sections and allows a margin towards clearing the deficit. Capping employee contributions at a maximum rate means contribution rates would not be subject to fluctuations in stock markets. This will also protect the future of railway pensions and current pensioners because more rail workers will be able to afford to pay into the pension scheme.

2. The Railway Pension Scheme is open to all rail workers. The more contributions to the scheme, the more people there are to build up the pension funds, so keeping the scheme open to every one will benefit all in the long term. It?s also fair to all workers in the industry.

3. That there will be no reduction in pension benefits. Many rail employers want to try and solve the railway pensions? crisis by cutting pension benefits. The unions are also aware that behind the scenes many employers are discussing closing the Railway Pension Scheme and introducing inferior arrangements. They want people to work until 65, only have inflation proofing of 2.5% instead of full RPI, have pensions based on the career average earnings instead of being based on the final year?s salary, and no ill-health benefits.

However the problem with the Railways Scheme is not the cost of future benefits, which are high but still affordable. The problem is the short term deficit caused by the Actuary changing assumptions.

4. For the Railway Pension scheme to be streamlined into three sections. We are proposing one section for Train Operating Companies, one for Infrastructure/Engineering Companies and one Omnibus Section. It makes sense to streamline the scheme, it will be easier to run and cut out extra costs. Taxpayers will save money by not picking up the bill for valuations when franchises or other contracts change.

Streamlining the scheme would introduce economies of scale and facilitate stability, long-term planning and more prudent management ? essential pre-requisites of a healthy pension scheme.

Why does the government have a responsibility to act?

The rail unions believe the government have a responsibility to protect rail workers pensions because the rail companies cannot survive without government subsidy.  In addition the train-operating companies, Network Rail and their respective suppliers are all de-facto government contracts.  It is only the government that can assist in facilitating industry wide talks to resolve this dispute and give the go ahead to moving towards a more streamlined pension scheme.

Posted on 06:42 PM | Permalink

The Herald: May 08 2006   
MARTYN McLAUGHLIN

Network Rail will today unveil plans for a £15bn high-speed rail link between Scotland and London.

Iain Coucher, deputy chief executive of the infrastructure company, will outline the case for the line, which could herald journeys of just three hours between Glasgow and London every half hour.

The blueprints would result in trains travelling at speeds of 180mph from 2016, and would run parallel to the existing west coast main line.

The organisation believes that, if it can attract sufficient numbers of passengers from domestic airlines, it could operate without subsidy.

Speaking today at an Institution of Civil Engineers conference in London, Mr Coucher will discuss the plans, which would cost in the region of £12bn and see services stop at Birmingham and Manchester.

For the project to be viable, it is expected the service would need to carry 21 million passengers a year by 2016, and 30 million in 15 years. Such forecasts would account for 70% of market share of routes between Scotland and London.

The notion of a high-speed link connecting Scotland with the capital has been raised before, but Network Rail's scheme represents a firm sign the link may go ahead.

Sir Rod Eddington, the government's most senior transport adviser, is expected to back the scheme in a report this summer.

Network Rail will today unveil plans for a £15bn high-speed rail link between Scotland and London.

Iain Coucher, deputy chief executive of the infrastructure company, will outline the case for the line, which could herald journeys of just three hours between Glasgow and London every half hour.

The blueprints would result in trains travelling at speeds of 180mph from 2016, and would run parallel to the existing west coast main line.

The organisation believes that, if it can attract sufficient numbers of passengers from domestic airlines, it could operate without subsidy.

Speaking today at an Institution of Civil Engineers conference in London, Mr Coucher will discuss the plans, which would cost in the region of £12bn and see services stop at Birmingham and Manchester.

For the project to be viable, it is expected the service would need to carry 21 million passengers a year by 2016, and 30 million in 15 years. Such forecasts would account for 70% of market share of routes between Scotland and London.

The notion of a high-speed link connecting Scotland with the capital has been raised before, but Network Rail's scheme represents a firm sign the link may go ahead.

Sir Rod Eddington, the government's most senior transport adviser, is expected to back the scheme in a report this summer.

Posted on 08:04 AM | Permalink

Investment & Pensions Europe: 05/May/06
By Meagan Rees

The Department for Transport could be asked to pick up the tab for nine UK rail pension schemes with approximately 170,000 members, which are covered by a full crown guarantee.

A spokesperson for the department said: "On the basis of the most recent actuarial valuation, these crown guarantees are not expected to require any additional financing by the taxpayer."

The DfT told IPE that these crown guarantees were given prior to 1997 "in order to facilitate a successful privatisation".

The guarantees cover approximately 158,000 existing and deferred pensioners in the British Rail Pension Scheme, who were placed in a separate section of the "new" Railways Pension Scheme (RPS) at the start of rail privatisation in 1994.

"The 1994 pensioners section has a 100% guarantee up to the position in 2000, and a guarantee for future index linked pensions increases," a Railway Pensions Management spokesperson told IPE.

The government guarantee also covers roughly 12,000 members belonging to smaller funds, which have been closed to new entrants for a number of years.

These include the Great Western Railway Salaried Staff Widows' and Orphans Pensions Society, the Salaried Staff Scheme and the BR 1974 Pension Fund, said the Railway Pensions Management spokesperson.

Posted on 07:19 AM | Permalink

BBC News: 5 May 2006

Improvements at a rural railway station mean passengers no longer need to mind the gap between the platform and train. One passenger even brought a stool to help climb onto the train.

Until recently rail users at Freshford Station, near Bath, had to clamber across a huge space to get onto trains.

One elderly passenger even resorted to bringing a wooden stool with her to help her climb onboard the train.

Now Network Rail has spent £350,000 to raise the platforms by about 30cm, and has added new lighting and a waiting shelter to the station.

Network Rail spokesman Robbie Burns said: "We listened to the concerns of the local community and raised Platform 2 by almost 300mm to make it easier for passengers to get on and off the trains."

Posted on 06:58 PM | Permalink

Bloomberg: May 5

Transport for London, which operates the city's buses and underground trains, criticized maintenance contractor Metronet Rail for causing a "dreadful mess'' when it imposed speed restrictions on four lines.

Trains yesterday could travel no faster than 20 miles per hour (32 kilometers per hour), rather than up to 50 miles an hour, on parts of the District, Metropolitan Line, Piccadilly and Hammersmith & City lines, said Peter MacLennan, a London Underground spokesman, today.

The company failed to perform track maintenance to prepare the above-ground Tube rails for warmer weather, MacLennan said. London's temperature touched 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) yesterday as the U.K. had its warmest day in eight months, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.

Metronet has a 30-year contract to maintain and upgrade London Underground, also know as the Tube. Mayor Ken Livingstone has regularly criticized the company's performance since the city took over the running of the railway in 2003 from the U.K. government. The city and the contractors are spending 10 billion pounds ($18.5 billion) on transport improvements over five years.

"This is simply poor management and planning,'' said Peter Hendy, London's commissioner for transport. Metronet's shareholders "will have to step in and sort out this dreadful mess,'' he added.

Metronet's shareholders are Atkins WS Plc, Balfour Beatty Plc, Bombardier Inc., EDF Energy SA and RWE AG's Thames Water.

Metronet spokespeople didn't answer phone calls, and a message wasn't immediately returned.

`Severe Delays'

The speed restrictions led to "severe delays'' on the underground, said MacLennan. It wasn't clear whether the speed limits would continue today, and the city and Metronet are working to ensure that the rails will be ready for summer.

Metronet and the system's other maintenance contractor, Tube Lines, will spend 4 billion pounds upgrading the network over the five years. Mayor Livingstone has criticized the contracts that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government signed as being too favorable to the companies.

In December, Standard & Poor's lowered its rating on a Metronet secured bank loan and index-linked bonds. Metronet said in March it has made changes, including appointing a new chief executive, to improve performance on its London Underground contract.

Metronet also is in charge of the upgrade of the Waterloo & City Line, which closed in March for five months to get new track, signal and security equipment.

Posted on 06:53 PM | Permalink

The Guardian: May 4, 2006
Andrew Clark

The inter-city rail firm GNER is cutting back on its award-winning dining cars and considering changing its catering supplier as it struggles to meet the demands of its 10-year franchise.

GNER's finances are coming under intense scrutiny as its ailing Bermuda-registered owner, Sea Containers, faces a cash crunch. Rival rail operators are hovering to take over the London-to-Edinburgh franchise if GNER's position deteriorates.

Under its franchise GNER is supposed to pay £1.3bn in profit premiums to the government over a decade. The transport department has made it clear it is unwilling to renegotiate these payments.

Among the financial cuts made by the company will be a reduction in the number of restaurant cars, from 100 to 92 a day, with meal services withdrawn on some Scottish sections of GNER's route.

The company has long been renowned for its onboard cuisine, which includes delicacies such as mushroom strudel and black cherry pavlova as well as popular English breakfasts. But the dining cars, which employ 250 people, are reported to lose about £10m annually.

A GNER spokesman said dining cars were under review on some services, and chefs might be withdrawn on certain Scottish sections of routes where diners were hard to come by. The new franchise sets a minimum of 87 restaurant cars on GNER's 122 daily services. "Particularly at lunchtimes we're finding today's business market is looking towards a lighter alternative. We'll still have significantly more than the 66 dining services we had when we started [in 1997]."

Rail Gourmet, which provides GNER's buffet services and wholesale food, has been told to re-tender for its contract and GNER is considering switching to a rival venture, between Alpha Flight Services and the French Compagnie des Wagons-Lits. Alpha Flight Services is a division of Alpha Airports, which last week had its shares suspended on the stock market.

GNER insists it is "ring fenced", via separate banking arrangements, from problems at Sea Containers, which has admitted a breach of banking covenants and has delayed its annual accounts as its auditors are not convinced it is a going concern. Bob MacKenzie, Sea Containers' president, said in March that achieving the sales growth assumptions in GNER's franchise appeared "challenging".

GNER blames its problems partly on the rail regulator's allowing another operator, Grand Central Trains, on its line. But critics point further back, to an over-optimistic business plan and a downturn in passengers after last July's bombings in London.

Posted on 04:42 AM | Permalink

Financial Times: May 4 2006
By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent

GNER, the train operator, is far more dependent than previously thought on support from its parent Sea Containers Group, filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission reveal.

The revelation casts doubt on GNER's ability to operate if Sea Containers becomes insolvent.

Sea Containers - which has its headquarters in London but is listed in New York - warned this week that it expected its auditors to question whether it was a going concern.

The company had recently insisted that its problems had little impact on GNER's contract to run trains on the London to Leeds and Edinburgh route.

But, in its annual report to the SEC last year, Sea Containers revealed that it provided a $55m (£30m) stand-by credit facility to GNER before May 1 last year, when it started its latest, 10-year operating franchise.

The facility's existence was a condition of the award of the new franchise, according to SEC filings. If it were withdrawn because of Sea Containers' problems, GNER could be in breach of its franchise conditions.

Sea Containers also guarantees a £10m working capital facility for GNER and a performance bond with the Department for Transport - now in charge of rail franchising - which is also vital for GNER to continue services.

Sea Containers played down the importance of the credit facilities, saying GNER was able to finance its own operations. The DoT said GNER was still satisfying all its franchise obligations.

GNER is also facing other problems, since in March the Office of Rail Regulation unexpectedly refused its request to run extra services and instead let a new operator run services which will take some GNER revenue.

The decision seriously affects GNER's ability to make £1.3bn of payments to the government under the franchise agreement.

Posted on 04:39 AM | Permalink

Daily Teldgraph: 05/05/2006
By Robert Miller 

The Government could be called on to plug a pension fund deficit in pre-1994 rail privatisation schemes which carry a Crown guarantee and collectively cover 170,000 members. The extra funding would come from the Department for Transport.

The DfT confirmed last night that nine pension schemes received Crown guarantees during the 1994 rail privatisation process. These cover 158,000 existing pensioners and deferred pensioners in the newly created Railways Pension Scheme (RPS).

A further 12,000 members belong to the much smaller pension funds, such as the British Rail Superannuation Fund, the Great Western Railway Salaried Staff Widows' and Orphans' Pension Society and the BR 1974 pension fund. These funds are now administered by the Railway Pensions Management Office.

The difference between the Government guarantees on the rail retirement plans and the one carried by BT is that the telecoms giant is still a going business concern. By contrast, the current rail companies are not responsible for former BR schemes.

News of the state guarantees came after the Pensions Regulator yesterday issued a final statement on how 10,000 defined benefit and occupational pension schemes will reduce a total deficit of up to £130bn.

The watchdog said it would provide greater flexibility on how funds tackled their shortfalls, the time they took to deal with them and take into account how much the sponsoring employer could afford to pay without damaging the business.

Andrew Conquest, recovery partner at accountant Grant Thornton, said: "The statement makes clear that trustees will need to take into account the employers' business plans and the likely effect any potential recovery plan would have on the employer."

However, he added: "British companies, and especially cash rich ones that you might find in the FTSE 100 index, will still need to ensure they make good any deficits as quickly as they can reasonably afford." The FTSE 100 pension deficit has fallen by £10bn to £34bn, Watson Wyatt said.

Stephen Yeo, senior consultant at the actuarial firm, said the final statement from the Pensions Regulator would mean "an awful lot of firms, maybe as many as 50pc of the 10,000 or so that report to the regulator, will have to come up with action plans to reduce their deficits and each could take a while to sort out."

Posted on 04:30 AM | Permalink

BBC News: 3 May 2006

The economic case for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link "remains marginal", a report by MPs has said. Eurostar trains will run to St Pancras when the link is completed.

The £5.2bn link from London to Kent cannot be justified on passenger numbers alone, said the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee.

Regeneration benefits were needed to ensure value for money and taxpayers may be forced to pay more, MPs said.

The second stage of the link from north Kent to St Pancras is due to be finished by next year.

The link is expected to speed up journeys from London to Paris and Brussels, and improve services on domestic routes from 2009.

"No one really knows how much money taxpayers will be required to cough up in future" - Edward Leigh, committee chairman

The report also said the cost of the second stage may continue to be a problem for South East England as construction projects are hit by high inflation.

Other major projects such as the Olympics in 2012, the widening of the M25 and the Thameslink 2000 rail scheme were also creating an extra drain on resources, the MPs added.

The committee report said a forecast of passenger numbers had not been reached.

London & Continental Railways, which bid for the project in 1996, said there would be 21.4 million Eurostar passengers by 2004, but the actual number then was only 7.3 million.

Guide to the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, due to open in 2007 click here At-a-glance guide to the Channel tunnel

The committee's chairman, Edward Leigh, said: "The CTRL is undoubtedly a magnificent project and a boost to our national prestige but the economic justification for it remains marginal.

"No one really knows how much money taxpayers will be required to cough up in future."

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said the link would provide substantial regeneration benefits.

"In addition to improved passenger services, it will support an estimated 100,000 new jobs, 18,000 new homes and over 40 million sq ft of office space along the route of the link," he said.

See also:

MPs criticise slow start to Britain's fastest railway line as costs mount

The Guardian: May 4, 2006
Andrew Clark, transport correspondent

Public accounts committee berates wild forecasts of ticket sales that left Channel tunnel link underfunded

It is billed as a marvel of modern engineering that will drag Britain's railways into the 21st century. But the Channel tunnel rail link's benefits are "marginal" and planning has been dogged by wildly optimistic assumptions, according to parliament's spending watchdog.

A report by MPs on the public accounts committee will upbraid the government today for failing to manage risks adequately on the £5.2bn project, which is Britain's first internationally recognised high-speed railway, with trains running at 186mph.

Ticket sales on Eurostar trains, which were supposed to help fund construction, have barely reached a third of the level forecast by the Department for Transport's advisers. The final section of the line, to open next year, is running £200m over its £3.3bn budget as a glut of construction projects in the railway industry pushes up wages.

Edward Leigh, the Tory chairman of the committee, said government guarantees on financing the project could yet be called upon: "No one really knows how much money taxpayers will be required to cough up in future."

He said that although the line was "undoubtedly a magnificent project and a boost to our national prestige", it had been poorly financed. "The link has been bedevilled from the outset by inaccurate forecasting of the number of passengers likely to use Eurostar and the amount of revenue this would generate," he said.

Designed to end the national embarrassment of cross-Channel trains slowing to a crawl on the British side of the tunnel, the 68-mile rail link has been under construction since October 1998.

A first section, between Folkestone and Fawkham Junction in north Kent, opened in 2003 and in a test run, trains broke the national speed record by hurtling through the countryside at 208mph. The rest of the link will open late next year, terminating at the rebuilt St Pancras station, which will be Europe's biggest rail passenger hub.

Questions have been raised about whether the line provides value for money. Under the government's own cost-benefit analysis, it will fall short purely as a transport endeavour unless the number of cross-Channel passengers unexpectedly rockets. But regeneration benefits could deliver a positive economic case if it helps to create an anticipated 100,000 jobs and 18,000 homes in down-at-heel areas of north and east London.

"The justification for public funding of the link is dependent on wider and unquantifiable benefits, such as regeneration and national prestige," says the committee, pointing out that it will be difficult to isolate the regeneration due to the line from the benefits of parallel projects such as the 2012 Olympics.

London & Continental Railways (LCR), a consortium including Bechtel, Halcrow, National Express and SNCF, won a contract to build the line in 1996. At the time, it forecast that Eurostar's passenger numbers would reach 21.4 million by 2004 but they only reached 7.3 million. The shortfall in revenue forced the government to lend more money to keep the project afloat.

Particular criticism is reserved for an American consultancy, Booz Allen Hamilton, which drew up passenger forecasts in 2001 and 2004 for the government. Its estimates proved hopelessly high - yet the Department for Transport has hired it again to compile another set of forecasts.

The MPs said: "The department was unable to say whether a competition had been held to see if anyone else could have made more realistic forecasts. Nevertheless, the department said it was satisfied that Booz Allen Hamilton had done the best professional job it could do at particular points in time."

London & Continental made much of the fact that it opened the first section of the line on time and within budget. But costs are piling up on the final stretch of track as wage and material costs edge up. Experts say the costs of construction have accelerated well ahead of inflation in the south-east, where other planned work includes the widening of the M25, the Thameslink 2000 rail modernisation project, Olympic preparations and new homes in the Thames Gateway.

An LCR spokesman said the cost of the line remained "within the budget range" but admitted it was at the top end of this range. He brushed aside the committee's report: "It provides a very incomplete picture when you put it alongside the greatly reduced journey times we'll be delivering for commuters and international travellers."

The fastest trains on the line will go from London to Paris in 2 hours, 15 minutes, cutting 40 minutes off the trip. A journey to Brussels will take one hour, 51 minutes. Local trains to towns in Kent will cut commuters' journeys by up to half an hour. The line's advocates also pointed out that it played a central part in London's successful Olympic bid as it will be used for Javelin shuttles carrying passengers between central London and the games in Stratford.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said ministers would study the report's recommendations, adding: "The substantial regeneration benefits the link will deliver should not be overlooked."

Posted on 07:57 AM | Permalink

noticias.info: 3 May 2006

The Transport Committee is supporting the introduction of the European Rail Traffic Management System, ERTMS.

In adopting a report on Tuesday, it approved a plan to replace the more than 20 different national train protection and signalling systems with one European system.

ERTMS would boost the competitiveness of European freight and passenger railways, since trains could run across borders without changing drivers. The system features two basic components: GSM-R, a radio system used to exchange information (both voice and data) between traffic management centres and the on board crew and equipment, and ETCS (European Train Control System), a computer-based system to control train speed. ERTMS is a fully developed and tested system, already available on the market and in commercial use in several Member States. Version 2.3.0 of the system should make it possible to start operating high speed or high capacity international rail corridors in Europe from 2007.

MEPs in the committee say that if ERMTS is to succeed, it should be introduced in particular on six international routes: Rotterdam-Genoa, Naples-Berlin-Stockholm, Antwerp-Basel-Lyon, Seville-Lyon-Turin-Ljubljana, Dresden-Vienna-Budapest and Duisburg-Warsaw, with priority for the route from Rotterdam to Genoa.

The own-initiative report was drafted by Michael Cramer (Greens/EFA, DE) and was adopted unanimously by the committee.

Posted on 07:50 AM | Permalink

BBC News: 3 May 2006

The Tube's East London Line is to shut for two years to allow for a major £1bn upgrade, BBC London has learned.

A leaked London Underground memo shows plans for it to be the first Tube line to be run by the private sector, once work is completed in 2009.

The line, which will play a major 2012 Olympic role, will shut in December 2007 for work to be carried out.

The Shoreditch to New Cross line will be extended north to Highbury and south to West Croydon and Clapham Junction.

Once completed it will be handed to a private operator in 2009 when it will be tied into services on the overland North London Line - creating a new franchise.

Unions unhappy

Currently only the Docklands Light Railway is run by a private operator - with Transport for London overseeing the contract.

The mayor's office have made the decision to make the East London Line privately-run, said BBC London's Transport Correspondent Andrew Winstanley.

Previously mayor Ken Livingstone had been bitterly opposed to any form of privatisation on the Tube - fighting an unsuccessful campaign against the privatisation of maintenance on the Underground.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said they were unhappy at the plans and intended to fight privatisation.

A Transport for London spokesman said it would continue to set fares and the frequency of services, and would offer a better service and more jobs under an integrated rail service.

"There will be absolutely no redundancies and all current staff will be offered alternative positions within London Underground in full consultation with trade unions," he added.

The East London Line, currently a relatively short line, carries an average of 34,443 people on a weekday.

Posted on 11:47 PM | Permalink

Catalyst 14: 1 May 2006

Health and safety campaigners have welcomed the jailing of a rail boss, found guilty of killing four maintenance workers who died when a runaway wagon ploughed into them.

Mark Connell, 44, had deliberately dismantled the brakes on two of his wagons in order to save money.

He received a nine year sentence for each of the four counts of manslaughter, to run concurrently. However the jailing of Connell, though welcome, is perhaps not quite the victory it first seems. As the construction giant Carillion plc, who subcontracted Connell to carry out the work, and as such should take some of the blame, was never prosecuted.

Connell's company, MAC Machinery Services, is typical of the countless number of sub-contractors carrying out work on British Railways. These dubious outfits care little about the safety of their largely self-employed labour force, they hire workers who often have little or no experience of working on the railways and even less heath & safety training. The large construction companies, contracted to carry out track maintenance since rail privatisation, are fully aware of the nature of these cowboy companies but use them because they come cheap and so boost profits. When accidents occur and workers pay with their lives, the directors of rich and powerful companies such as Carillian , Balfour Beatty and First Engineering simply walk away passing the blame for criminal safety.

This culture of passing the buck has become the normal way of working on the railways and is used where companies employ workers directly. Here companies employ what at first sight appears to be vigorous heath and safety polices. Workers are sent on endless safety courses and have to sign off regular safety briefing. These polices are largely cosmetic and mask poor and unsafe working conditions, based on long hours and understaffing in which the pressure is constantly on workers to get work done in a short space of time. When rail workers cut safety corners simply to get the job done management are happy to turn a blind eye. Until that is an accident occurs, then the safety briefing and course attended are wheeled out as prove of the companies commitment to health and safety and blame is passed onto individual workers who are castigated for not following company safety procedures. To the extent that it is now routine for workers to be disciplined or sacked for breaches of health and safety, a practice virtually unheard of under nationalisation when safety procedures were seen as a means of preventing accidents rather a get out clause for managers.

Sadly this "blame it on the workers" culture now extends across most sectors of the British economy. Privatisation, increasing casualisation and ever longer hours has resulted in ever worsening working conditions that lead to poor health and safety standards. Which companies conceal by creating veneer of heath and safety respectability to disguise often appalling work place practices.

A whole industry of experts has been created that employers can call upon to instruct workers on heath and safety practices. Creating a "virtual" world of safety procedures that bare little relation to the realities of what actually happens in the workplace which only function is to transfers all safety responsibility onto worker. When things go wrong management simply blame workers for not following guidelines.

In to many workplaces it is management that have the whip hand and when bosses have control the result will always be poor standards of heath and Safety. The long term solution to poor heath and safety is to rebuild workplace organisation that can challenge the power of management in order to improve working conditions. Good health and safety does not depend on presenting workers with certificates for attending some nonsense course they have been forced to attend. But rather workers having control over their working environment in order to challenge the power of managers who inevitably but cost before the heath and welfare of workers.

Posted on 11:44 PM | Permalink

RMT: May 3 2006

BRITAIN'S BIGGEST rail and Tube union today slammed the decision to privatise the East London Line when it re-opens after extension in 2009, and pledged to campaign to keep it in the public sector.

RMT today said that it would do everything it could to prevent the line being offered as a "concession" by TfL, to a private-sector operator and would take steps to safeguard its members' jobs and conditions.

"The extension of the East London Line is a welcome boost for London, but there is no earthly reason why its operations should not remain within London Underground," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said.

"The private sector has already wreaked havoc on the Tube since its infrastructure was privatised, and they have been leeching £2 million a week out of the system in exchange for next to no improvements.

"Neither our members nor the vast majority of passengers who have experienced the disaster of rail privatisation would want to impose it anywhere else.

"Farming the East London Line out to the privateers can only mean further damaging fragmentation and the diversion of even more cash out of the system and into the pockets of privateers, and we will do everything we can to keep the operation public.

"RMT will take the necessary steps to safeguard the jobs, conditions and pensions of our members," Bob Crow said.

Posted on 05:51 PM | Permalink

Swindon Advertiser: 1st May 2006
By Mark Hookham

PLANNED cuts to Swindon rail services will force commuters on to clogged roads, an MP has said.

South Swindon MP Anne Snelgrove told MPs that the town needs its train links to remain viable.

She was speaking in a Commons debate which saw MPs from all the major parties attack the Government for allowing Swindon transport giant First Great Western to slash services in the west.

Pressure group Transport 2000 has warned Swindon is one of the worst urban areas hit by cuts in First Great Western's draft timetable, due to be introduced in December.

The timetable will see the scrapping of the two-hourly Swindon to Southampton service, via Melksham.

It will be replaced with only two return services each day between Swindon and Westbury.

This will mean Swindon will no longer serve a crucial interchange between the Midlands and the South Coast and will mean fewer services from Swindon to outlying Wiltshire towns and villages.

Mrs Snelgrove warned this will have a major impact on commuters travelling to and from the town for work.

She said: "The issue for me is the number of people from rural communities, such as Chippenham, Melksham and other towns in Wiltshire who will be travelling in by car if train services are cut.

"The Swindon-Southampton service, for example, is threatened with cuts.

"We need people to come in by train and not by car for our urban areas to remain viable."

The cuts follow radical changes to the Government's list of "specified routes."

These are loss-making routes currently supported in the south west by a £60m government subsidy.

First Great Western was awarded the lucrative Greater Western franchise by the Government in December.

Trains Minister Derek Twigg refused to make any commitments to save the services under threat, insisting the new franchise would deliver a better service.

He said: "I understand most members are here today because they are not happy with various things, but we must consider the bigger picture.

"It is important to remember that these are good times for the railways.

"A record amount is being spent £87m each week.

It is worth emphasising that First Group has committed itself to £220m investment over the first three years of the franchise in return to run it, and that will deliver a range of benefits to passengers."

Posted on 08:40 AM | Permalink

The Times: May 03, 2006
By Angela Jameson

The financial woes of its parent, Sea Containers, are adding to the pressures on the railway operator

RIVAL train operators who lost out to GNER in the competition to take over the East Coast Main Line rail franchise are running the slide rule over the line in the hope that it may be put out to tender again.

VirginRail and FirstGroup are understood to be keeping a close watch on developments at GNER, whose parent company Sea Containers is in financial difficulties.

The companies are thought to be interested in taking over the franchise, should the Department for Transport (DfT) decide that GNER is no longer fit to do the job.

The DfT has said that it is monitoring the finances of GNER and will keep a close eye on what is happening at the train operator, which is responsible for the railway line between London and Edinburgh.

If problems arise, the DfT will step in - as it has on previous occasions - and will take over the running of the franchise, before eventually offering it for re-tender.

"The bottom line is to protect the passenger interest. In all franchise agreements there are provisions to make sure that the trains continue to run," a spokesman for the DfT said.

Last night, Christopher Garnett, GNER chief exective, insisted that it was business as usual at the company and that passengers should not be concerned by reports of Sea Containers' financial difficulties. "I am totally confident in GNER's future and see no reason why we should not continue to be on of the best-performing train operators in the country," he said.

"We meet with the Department for Transport regularly and we always keep them informed about Sea Containers' position. Obviously, that is wise to do so at the moment."

GNER is ring-fenced from its parent company and has its own banking lines. On Monday Sea Containers admitted that it was in breach of its banking covenants and said that it would sell Silja Line, its Scandinavian ferry business, for £415 million to cut its debts.

A spokeswoman for Sea Containers said that GNER was delivering on all its franchise commitments, despite experiencing a very difficult second half in 2005, when passenger numbers fell drastically after the July 7 bombings in Central London.

GNER received a setback last month when the Rail Regulator ruled that Grand Central, a rival train company, could begin to run services to Sunderland, within GNER's franchise area, under so-called open-access agreements.

Mr Garnett has complained that the regulator's ruling is unjust and has taken away "half" his franchise. A letter to the regulator setting out the complaint is thought to be the opening salvo in a legal battle that is likely to see the train operating company in court in the next month.

GNER bid a knock-out sum last year to retain the East Coast franchise, operating between London, Leeds and Edinburgh, for the next ten years. It pledged to pay £1.3 billion to the taxpayer in premiums over the life of the franchise, thought to be £300 million than the sum bid by VirginRail, the runner-up in the franchise competition.

In a further blow, GNER was told last month that it will not be allowed to cut the premium payments that it had negotiated as a result of the regulator's ruling. The DfT had been thought to be open to renegotiation because it had strongly opposed the ruling. However, it said: "We do not renegotiate franchises."

Failure of parent could affect control

THE failure of GNER?s parent company could trigger a change-of-control clause at the East Coast Main Line franchise, causing a headache for officials in the Department for Transport.

Should Sea Containers fall into the hands of its creditors - a worst-case scenario - the Department will want to establish that GNER remains financially robust. However, GNER may end up on the auction block before that happens. Speculation that GNER will be sold has begun, despite Sea Containers' new chief executive, Bob MacKenzie, saying that he sees GNER and GE SeaCo, its container shipping business, as central to the new company he wants to build.

The company could be of interest to rival train-operating companies such as VirginRail, FirstGroup, National Express Group and MTR, the Hong Kong transit operator. However, the timing for a sale is poor for three reasons: the £1.3 billion premium GNER has promised to the Government, the fact that passenger numbers have fallen since last year's July bombings and because revenue figures could fall further when Grand Central starts rival services to the North East.

Rivals would prefer to pick up the franchise straight from the Government. "We're watching very closely, but it won't win us friends to be seen as vultures hovering," one rival company said.

However, if the DfT was satisfied with GNER's financial robustness it could allow it to continue running the franchise, although it may prefer to introduce the sort of cost-plus management contract it has used on the Virgin Cross Country franchise. If it is not satisfied, it could take the more drastic action of taking over the running of the franchise itself, as happened with Connex's South Eastern franchise in 2003. That franchise was eventually put out to retender, but it was effectively run by civil servants for three years.

"Governments like to see strong owning companies standing behind train operators and the Department hasn't come across this problem before," one rail industry observer said. "It could be two, even three years, before there is anything to bid for."

Posted on 08:28 AM | Permalink

Daily Telegraph: 02/05/2006
By Alistair Osborne, Business Editor

GNER, operator of the East Coast Main Line, could be forced into franchise talks with the Government after its parent Sea Containers alarmed the markets by raising doubts about its own survival.

Bermuda-registered Sea Containers delayed the publication of its annual report and warned it expected the document to include an "explanatory paragraph" from its independent auditors "raising substantial doubt about Sea Containers' ability to continue as a going concern".

The news whacked the shares, which plunged 30pc in New York from $4.89 to $2.13.

A Sea Containers spokesman insisted its mounting financial problems would have no impact on GNER, which is effectively ring-fenced from its parent.

"The franchise agreement is with GNER and Sea Containers is not a party to it," said Sea Containers spokesman Lisa Barnard, adding: "Sea Containers is not a guarantor of GNER's debt."

She declined to be drawn on what would happen if Sea Containers went under. However senior rail industry sources said such failure would trigger a change of control clause at the GNER franchise, prompting talks with the Department for Transport.

The DfT would be expected to review whether GNER had the sufficient financial strength to continue to run the franchise. As long as it was satisfied, the department would not be obliged to re-let it.

One rail source said: "If Sea Containers went bust that would be deemed a franchise change event and they would certainly have to go back to the Government which would ask if they were good for delivery. It's always been a concern with GNER because their parent company has a weak balance sheet."

GNER last year retained the East Coast franchise, operating between London, Leeds and Edinburgh, for the next 10 years with a blockbuster bid. It pledged to pay £1.3bn to the taxpayer in premiums over the life of the franchise.

At the time, Christopher Garnett, chief executive, said: "I would rather overbid and win than underbid and lose."

GNER is already in dispute with the Office of Rail Regulation after it was refused the right to start new London-Leeds services, while a competitor, Grand Central Railways, has been allowed to start new services on the East Coast tracks. GNER has threatened a judicial review, arguing the decision wrecks the financial calculations on which its bid was made.

Sea Containers, which admitted it was in breach of its banking covenants, is desperately trying to raise more cash through the sale of its Scandinavian ferry business Silja, which was put on the market with a price tag of ?600m (£415m). The auction may now turn into a fire sale.

Posted on 08:25 AM | Permalink