Labour’s
detailed
proposals
for
railway
reform
are
ambitious



(writes
Sim
Harris).

They
take
the
plans
set
out
in
Keith
Williams’
Rail
Review
and
build
on
them,
with
the
result
that
a
new
railway
industry
emerges.

This
will
still
be
a
hybrid
industry,
financially
speaking,
although
it
will
hardly
deserve
the
label
‘privatised’
any
longer.

In
a
nutshell,
if
Labour
gains
power,
the
infrastructure
and
core
passenger
services
(those
operated
by
the
former
franchises)
will
be
state-owned,
and
administered
by
‘Great
British
Railways’.

During
the
first
five-year
term
of
a
Labour
Government
the
core
periods
of
the
existing
(passenger)
contracts
will
have
expired,
and
they
can
then
be
‘folded
in’
to
GBR.

Current
National
Rail
Contracts
are
heavyweight
documents,
following
in
the
footsteps
of
franchise
agreements,
and
they
would
not
have
been
cheap.
The
main
contract
for
East
Midlands
Railway
alone
runs
to
527
pages,
or
roughly
263,000
words.
There
are
ten
such
contracts
in
force
(excluding
those
operators
which
have
already
been
nationalised),
which
means
the
private
sector
passenger
railway,
not
including
open
access,
needs
around
two
and
a
half
million
words
to
describe
it
to
the
lawyers’
satisfaction.
Abolition
of
such
documents
will
go
some
way
towards
the
£2
billion-plus
which
Labour
says
will
be
saved
as
the
result
of
its
railway
reforms.

Railfreight
will
continue
to
be
carried
in
the
main
by
private
operators,
with
the
single
exception
of
Direct
Rail
Services,
which
has
been
nationalised
since
it
was
set
up
in
1995
and
is
a
wholly
owned
subsidiary
of
the
Nuclear
Decommissioning
Authority.

Open
access
passenger
services
are
also
to
be
allowed
to
continue,
but
capacity
limits
on
principal
routes
may
eventually
impose
a
natural
barrier
to
their
further
expansion
unless
the
state-owned
services
are
trimmed.

Third
party
ticket
retailers
are
also
set
to
survive,
but
much
will
depend
on
the
attractivemess
and
ease
of
the
website
which
GBR
is
apparently
going
to
create.

At
the
moment,
some
of
the
19
third-party
retailers
have
evolved
far
better
‘purchasing
experiences’
than
the
mess
which
is
the
present
National
Rail
portal.
Although
recently
redesigned,
it
is
still
the
website
from
hell,
and
has
also
become
keen
to
make
enquirers
choose
specific
trains
before
they
are
allowed
to
know
the
fares,
even
in
the
case
of
those
such
as
off-peak
returns,
which
are
the
same
price
all
the
time
outside
peak
periods
and
do
not
require
any
form
of
advance
booking.

The
National
Rail
website
may
indeed
have
contributed
to
the
popularity
of
third
party
retailers,
simply
because
their
websites
are
superior,
although
seven
of
those
retailers
were
rebuked
at
the
end
of
last
year
by
the
ORR
for
‘drip
pricing’,
which
is
when
an
online
seller
does
not
make
the
full
price
clear
at
the
start
of
a
transaction.
It
should
be
added
that
all
seven
have
promised
to
do
better.

A
number
of
well-known
railway
organisations
are
set
to
be
absorbed
by
GBR,
including
the
Rail
Delivery
Group
and
(of
course)
Network
Rail,
while
a
new
Passenger
Standards
Authority
will
replace
Transport
Focus
(although
not,
apparently,
London
TravelWatch)
and
the
Rail
Ombudsman,
and
also
take
on
some
of
the
functions
of
the
ORR.

Well-known
names
which
will
continue
in
the
new
world
include
BTP,
HMRI,
ROSCOs,
the
RAIB
and
(probably)
the
RSSB,
although
this
last
would
be
reviewed,
‘to
ensure
it
is
able
to
fulfil
a
similar
role
within
the
new
model’.

Labour’s
document
itself
might
have
gained
from
a
closer
review.
It
refers
(on
page
20)
to
a
mythical
body
called
the
Office
of
Road
and
Rail,
while
the
final
photograph
(on
page
25)
is
a
fine
image
of
a
train
apparently
destined
for,
er,
Portrush.
In
reality,
County
Antrim,
like
the
rest
of
Northern
Ireland,
is
neither
in
Britain
nor
within
the
scope
of
the
proposed
Great
British
Railways.

One
claim
received
in
the
Railnews
inbox
after
Labour’s
document
had
been
published
came
from
an
‘expert’
academic
commentator,
who
alleged:
‘There
is
common
ground
about
the
creation
of
a
guiding
mind
covering
track
and
train’.

Oh
no,
there
isn’t.
The
phrase
‘guiding
mind’
is
not
used
once
by
Labour.
However,
its
document
does
refer
(eight
times)
to
GBR
being
the
‘directing
mind’.
There
is
a
difference
in
meaning
here,
since
‘to
guide’
implies
advice
or
assistance,
while
‘to
direct’
is
more
like
an
instruction
–
as
in
‘directive’.

This
difference
could
be
important
if
tomorrow’s
railway
takes
shape
as
Labour
would
like
to
see
it.