Rail Crisis? Who You Gonna Call, Dave?

As those who know me will tell you, I have been predicting that the day of reckoning will come soon, as the collapse of the franchise system sinks the rail budget. I have also predicted for quite a while that this could lead to a new "Beeching" scenario.

Here is a very relevant article (link below.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/may/10/first-group-rail-expansion-budget

Key points:

- East Coast/SWT franchises on the point of collapse.

- First may end FGW franchise in 2013, rather than taking up their option of extending it to 2016. This would save them £826.6m in franchise payments.

A quote from Imperial College transport professor Stephen Glaister neatly sums up the situation:

"The deal that the government had in divvying up the cost of the railway between the taxpayer and the farepayer will have to be revisited. Somebody will have to pay more than they thought, or the scale of the railways will have to be dramatically cut back,"

Here are some archive Glaister quotes, starting in January 2007 (link below) :
http://www.rmtbristol.org.uk/2007/01/planes_trains_and_the_road_to.html

"One option put forward by some analysts is to reduce the amount of money spent on the relatively little-used rural services. The investment per passenger mile for these lines is huge, with many of the trains maintained to the same standard as 90mph mainline services.

Cutting rural lines would prompt accusations that the Government is repeating the act of Dr Beecham (their spelling mistake), who axed nearly one quarter of the system 40 years ago. But the Government should at least raise the issue by demonstrating to the taxpayer what some of these lines are costing them, according to Professor Stephen Glaister of Imperial College.Last year's Eddington committee, which examined the future of public transport, made the same observation."

And the following in August 2008 (link below) :
http://www.rmtbristol.org.uk/2008/08/romantics_love_high_speed_trai.html

"Professor Stephen Glaister, a transport expert at Imperial College, said there was scant evidence of a market for high-speed rail. More than two-thirds of rail journeys originated and ended in London, which indicated that the capacity problem was on short-distance commutes and not long distance lines. In the 15 years it would take to build a high-speed route to Birmingham and beyond billions of pounds could be spent on improving the existing network.

"There is an argument for spending a lot more money on the existing low-speed railway service. There are not enough people making long journeys for high-speed rail to make sense."

Plus this from April 2009 (link below) :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/13/trains-railways-branch-line-closures

"Something has to give," says Stephen Glaister, a transport professor at Imperial College, London. "The sensible thing might be to reduce the level of service. That would save some costs. Or the taxpayer's contribution has to go up as clear as night follows day."

It is rumoured that the Conservative plan for dealing with the crisis is as follows:

- Give the TOCs far more freedom from the specification, thus allowing them to reduce services/service levels and improve their ability to afford the premium payments. Also, by putting service level policy in the hands of the TOCs, it means that a Conservative DfT could avoid blame for service/service level reductions.

- Cut out a large chunk of infrastructure expansion/improvement plans, blaming the financial situation they inherit from Labour.

I think a certain professor can expect a call from No10 soon after May 2010...