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Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative Governments of
the 1980’s embarked upon a programme of privatising certain
‘nationalised’ industries such as gas, electricity and
telecommunications, but even she viewed the privatising of the
national rail network as "a privatisation too far"!
However, in 1984, the government decided
that ‘British Rail’ should sell-off any profitable parts of the
business not involved in the actual running of trains. So it was
that railway-owned hotels, ‘Sealink’ rail-ferries, other non-train
ferries remaining from the days of the ‘Big Four’ and cross channel
hovercraft were all sold. |
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It was left to John
Major’s Government of the 1990's to complete the process. This had
to be completed with some urgency when it became obvious that he was
unlikely to win the 1997 General Election.
In July 1992, the then Transport
Secretary, John MacGregor, published a ‘White Paper’ which would
ultimately lead to full rail privatisation. Although this was now
seen as inevitable, despite vigorous opposition by the Labour Party,
the resulting bill was most controversial even among supporters of
the basic policy. |
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John Major and
Margaret Thatcher. |
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John Major himself favoured a solution
along the lines of the ‘Big Four’, based on geographical location
whereas ‘British Rail’ management strongly recommended privatisation
as one entity. However, with great pressure from the Treasury, the
eventual bill proposed selling the track separately from the 'Train
Operating Companies' who would be invited to bid for fixed-term
franchises. On 5th November 1993, the ‘Railway Act’ was passed.
As a result of the Act, a host of new
names and abbreviations came into common use: the 'Train Operating
Companies' with fixed-term franchises, were 'TOCs'; the rolling stock
companies who leased to the 'TOCs' were 'ROSCOs' ; passenger services
were subsidized by 'OPRAF' - the ‘Office of Passenger Rail
Franchising’, with freight services not being subsidised. |
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The responsibility for maintaining the
infrastructure of the railways was assumed by 'Railtrack'. Formed on
1st April 1994, this was a group of companies owning the track,
signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful
of the stations on the British railway system, charging fees to the
'Train Operators'. 'Railtrack' however found much repair work was
needed before they could make a profit, largely due to low
government investment in the railways before the Act. They were
therefore forced to increase monies collected from the 'Train
Operators' and ask for further government subsidies.
In May 1996, ‘Railtrack’ was sold to
hundreds of thousands of private investors and floated on the stock
market, but only after its massive debt had been written-off. The
franchises themselves proved more easy to sell, with the first three
going to ‘South West Trains’, ‘Great Western’ and ‘LTS Rail’ in
December 1995 and the final one going to 'ScotRail' in April 1997
(immediately before the May General Election which Labour won). |
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TOC's were 'born' out
of 'British Rail'. |
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Despite the fact that Tony Blair's "New
Labour" Government, in principal, wanted to ‘re-nationalise’ the
railways (and little wonder, in view of the ‘unhealthy’ state of the
privatised industry they had inherited), this policy had to
discarded
out on the grounds of its estimated £22 billion price-tag.
During the early years of Labour rule, the
rail industry in Britain suffered several high profile accidents,
namely those in Southall (1997) and Ladbroke Grove (1999), as a
result of safety equipment failure causing trains to go through red
lights. Thereafter, came perhaps the most serious crash in Hatfield
(2000), caused by cracked rail fragmenting. The injuries and
fatalities resulting from these accidents did little for public
confidence in rail travel. Emergency speed restrictions and general
disruption on the network further compounded this lack of faith and
led to the implementation of a very expensive track replacement
programme funded by 'Railtrack'.
On 7th October 2001, ‘Railtrack’ sunk
to its financial nadir and was placed into administration. It was
replaced by the state-owned ‘Network Rail’, a company with no
shareholders, currently employing 35,000 people. |
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A retrospective assessment of the impact
of privatisation on Britain’s railways leads one to the realisation
that, although it cannot be denied that the present reality is very
different from that envisaged by the 1993 ‘Railway Act’, the
advantages and successes of this privatised industry are both
manifold and apparent. |
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In 2001, 'Network
Rail' replaced 'Railtrack' . |
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It was
hoped that general levels of customer service would improve as a
result of privatisation and indeed, on many lines, they have.
Customers now also benefit from the fact that there has been an
attempt to regulate fares, especially commuter season tickets, and
enjoy the possibility of being able to book in advance for many
cross-country and long distance journeys; paying substantially less
than they would for standard ‘walk-up’ fares. Since privatisation
much crucial and long overdue investment has been pumped into
extensive railway modernisation programmes. The series of
accidents at the turn of the century acted as a further catalyst
for these essential measures and, since then, the safety record
of the industry as a whole has most definitely improved.
The ‘Association of
Train Operating Companies’ ('ATOC') has been quoted as saying
recently that "1.32 billion passenger journeys were made on the
national rail network in the calendar year 2010 (a rise of 6.9%
compared to 2009 and 37% more than in 2000)", claiming further
that "this total is now approaching a peace-time record, with
such figures not having been witnessed since the early 1920's
when rail travel was at its peak".
These statistics show
a distinct, and very encouraging, restoration of passengers’
faith in the rail industry. The public appreciation of and
confidence in rail travel is currently being further boosted by
the growing realisation of just what great value for money rail
travellers (especially season ticket holders) still enjoy
compared with road users nowadays enduring an ‘all-time high’
with inflated and volatile petrol prices.
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At the time of writing,
Britain is undoubtedly enjoying a real ‘Railway
Renaissance’ and it will be fascinating to see how future chapters
in the life of the now bicentennial UK railway network
may unfold! |
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© Patricia Wallis,
OTRBOT |
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