A Good Idea For The Railways?
I’ve just read this article on the BBC, which is entitled Trains and Track Come Together In Rail Management.
It could be a good idea.
If I take the railway I know best, the London Overground, the track and stations, may still be owned by Network Rail but TfL work strongly with NR in deciding what gets done and when it gets done. You could almost say that LO is the tenant and NR is the landlord, but that both bofies sit together on the same management structure. It seems to work well however they do it. But it’s mainly good management and probably good people too.
You might ask, why doesn’t LO own the tracks and have their own maintenance teams! But do you do all the work on your house yourself or call in a specialist?
But as with a block of flats having a central.focus gives all owners and tenants a central point to get something fixed.
As the BBC article says, Network Rail has split itself into the various routes. So in East Anglia, NR’s local team are responsible for tracks and Greater Anglia for trains.
I can see interesting possibilities opening up. Say you are a developer and you have obtained planning permission to build a large industrial park or thousands of houses on an old military site, that lies alongside the railway.
As the joint management now has all the assets and permissions to fit a new station into their network, the developer might get the new station they need to make their development very successful.
Some will argue that trains and track should be in one enormous nationalised industry, but how would the little man on the Felixstowe Class 153 get a handle on that?
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The Anonymous Widower 
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