Downhill route to sad state of railways in UK

But he doesn't know a lot about railway finance. The reason why it was so expensive to make Blackrod station accessible to disabled potential rail travellers does not only have its roots in "near racketeering in railway engineering costs", though I cannot deny that this is a factor. But there is a more fundamental issue at stake.

Please note that I am not here arguing against railway privatisation as such (though I personally believe that we would have been better off had the railways stayed in state ownership). There were other forms of privatisation which could have been implemented. The Government of the day (Conservative) could have chosen to recreate the vertically-integrated but privately-owned railway which existed prior to nationalisation in 1948, with the LMS, the LNER, the GWR and the Southern Railway, each operating regional railway companies and maintaining their own rolling stock and infrastructure. Instead, they fragmented the industry, with different companies leasing rolling stock, operating trains, owning the infrastructure, and carrying out maintenance and renewal work. And the relationships between them were governed by contract, and enforced by legal action. This was, and indeed is, a paradise for lawyers and accountants, and hell on earth for nearly everybody else. It means that every time the line between Chorley and Bolton is blocked to allow for, for example, the construction of a new station at Horwich Parkway, Railtrack, or their successors, Network Rail, receive financial compensation for loss of access revenues from the Train Operating Companies, who are temporarily unable to run their trains along this section of line, and the Train Operating Companies receive compensation, as part of the scheme cost, for loss of revenue, cost of operating substitute bus services, and additional running costs involved in diverting through trains to alternative routes.

The cost of the ramp at Blackrod reflected this insane and lunatic procedure. But, to put it in some kind of context, whereas the cost of a basic two-platform new station under British Rail came in at around £500k, Horwich Parkway cost £3.1m. But this is not an isolated example. A major remodelling and resignalling scheme recently completed in the Leeds area cost £234m. Of this staggering sum, about 40 per cent went in reciprocal compensation payments to Network Rail, and to the Train Operating Companies. This is a direct consequence of the form of privatisation chosen by the government of the day. And as long as the structure persists, the excessive costs will persist. The answer is clear. Re-nationalise British Rail.

Peter Johnston

Kendal Road, Bolton