Network Rail

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Network Rail
Type	Company limited by guarantee
Founded	2002
Headquarters	London
Key people	John Armitt CEO Iain Coucher Deputy Chief Executive Peter Henderson – Projects and Engineering Director Kyle Taylor - Chief financial officer
Employees	32,000
Website	www.networkrail.co.uk

Network Rail is a British "not for dividend" company limited by guarantee whose principal asset is Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, a company limited by shares. Network Rail owns and operates the fixed infrastructure assets of the British railway system.

Network Rail owns the infrastructure, including the railway tracks, signals, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and most stations, but not the passenger or commercial freight rolling stock. Network Rail took over ownership by buying Railtrack plc, which was in "railway administration", from Railtrack Group plc for £500 million. The headquarters is at 40 Melton Street, Euston, London. The current Chairman is Ian McAllister, also Chairman of the Carbon Trust and formerly Managing Director of Ford Motor Company Limited.

Contents 1 Private sector status 2 Network Rail and National Rail 3 Infrastructure Maintenance 4 2006 Business Plan 5 Railway Stations 6 Management team 7 Training and Development 8 Grayrigg derailment 9 References 10 External link

[edit] Private sector status

It is a public-sector or a private-sector entity. Government ministers and former ministers appear to try to look both ways on this issue. On the one hand, they need Network Rail to be classified in the private sector to avoid the company's enormous debts (over £20 billion) being counted as public expenditure liabilities. On the other hand, they like the idea that the shareholders have gone and the public perception is one of renationalisation - "renationalisation in all but name" is a common media description of what happened to Railtrack when Network Rail took it over.

The UK Office for National Statistics insists that it is correct to have classified Network Rail as in the private sector, but in Parliament on October 24, 2005, former Secretary of State for Transport Stephen Byers MP said that he made "no apology for [his decision to apply for the administration order in respect of Railtrack] and for unwinding the Tory privatisation that was Railtrack" [italics added] (House of Commons, Official Report, 24 October 2005, Col 66). In October 2002 in the House of Lords government minister Lord McIntosh of Haringey, in answering a question, said: “The Question is about the West Coast main line, and it is true that the cost has escalated from a little over £2 billion to £10 billion. That shows incredible lack of control and forethought by Railtrack. We must get a grip of it, and we are getting a grip of it. However, we were able to get a grip of it only after it went into administration and we were able to take the company back again.” [Italics added] (House of Lords, Official Report, 17 October 2002, Cols 953-956). And on February 1 2007, the Leader of the House of Commons (Jack Straw) said: "... rail privatisation ... was one of the most catastrophic reorganisations, which we have had to resolve, and having done that — [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) may mock, but we brought Network Rail into public ownership ..." (House of Commons, Official Report, February 1 2007, Col 363).

[edit] Network Rail and National Rail

Network Rail should not be confused with National Rail. National Rail is a brand used to explain and promote a network of passenger railway services.

The two networks are very similar, but not exactly the same. Most Network Rail lines also carry freight traffic, some lines are freight only, and a few lines that carry passenger traffic are not part of the National Rail network (for example CTRL, Heathrow Express and the London Underground). Conversely some National Rail services operate over track that is not part of the Network Rail network (for example where they run on London Underground track).

[edit] Infrastructure Maintenance

In October 2003 Network Rail announced that it would take over all infrastructure maintenance work from private contractors, following concerns about the quality of work carried out by certain private firms, and spiralling costs. While the company maintained that this was not a step towards renationalisation of the entire network, many commentators saw the move as a sign that the privatisation of the railways was unravelling.

This impression was heightened in February 2004 by the opening of an operations centre at Waterloo station in London, operated jointly by Network Rail and the train operating company South West Trains. This was the first full collaboration of its kind since privatisation, and it is regarded as a model for other areas of the network, with a further six integrated Network Rail + TOC Control Centres having opened since then, at Blackfriars, Croydon, Swindon, Birmingham, Glasgow and, most recently, Liverpool Street, opened by Alistair Darling on 23 February 2005.

Track renewal, the ongoing modernisation of the railway network by replacing track and signalling, continues to be carried out by private engineering firms under contract. The biggest renewals project is the multi-billion-pound upgrade of the London to Glasgow West Coast Main Line.

Network Rail initially sub-contracted much of the work and the site to private Infrastructure Maintenance Companies such as Carillion Rail and First Engineering. Other sub-contractors are used on site for specialist work or additional labour. These include:

• Sky Blue
• Balfour Beatty
• Laboursite
• BCL

Since 2003 Network Rail has been building up significant in-house engineering skills, including funding of apprenticeship schemes. Network Rail reports significant savings resulting from the initial transfers of work away from contracting companies. Additional contracts were taken back by Network Rail after the serious accident at Potters Bar and other accidents at Rotherham and King's Cross led Jarvis to pull out of the track repair business. Shortly after this, and due to other failures by maintenance companies, Network Rail took control of many more maintenance duties.

In 2006, Network Rail made public a high-tech plan to combat the effects of slippery rail. This plan involves ths use of satellites for tracking trouble areas, water-jetting trains and crews using railhead scrubbers, sand sticks and a substance called Natrusolve, which dissolves leaf mulch.^[1]

All workers working on, near or trackside have to undergo a Personal Track Safety medical.

[edit] 2006 Business Plan

In April 2006, Network Rail published its Business Plan complete with route maps showing the entire network divided into 26 "Routes", which in most cases might be more accurately described as geographical areas. They are as follows:

• Route 1 - Kent
• Route 2 - Brighton Main Line and Sussex
• Route 3 - South West Main Line
• Route 4 - Wessex Routes
• Route 5 - West Anglia
• Route 6 - North London Line and Thameside
• Route 7 - Great Eastern
• Route 8 - East Coast Main Line
• Route 9 - North East Routes
• Route 10 - North Trans-Pennine, North and West Yorkshire
• Route 11 - South Trans-Pennine, South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire
• Route 12 - Reading to Penzance
• Route 13 - Great Western Main Line
• Route 14 - South and Central Wales and Borders
• Route 15 - South Wales Valleys
• Route 16 - Chilterns
• Route 17 - West Midlands
• Route 18 - West Coast Main Line
• Route 19 - Midland Main Line and East Midlands
• Route 20 - North West Urban
• Route 21 - Merseyrail
• Route 22 - North Wales and Borders
• Route 23 - North West Rural
• Route 24 - East of Scotland
• Route 25 - Highlands
• Route 26 - Strathclyde and South West Scotland

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Critics within the media remain sceptical about NR's long term viability. The company's borrowing has increased from £16bn to £20bn in 2006, and despite the railway as a whole attracting record numbers of passengers, the company remains unable to service anything other than the interest on this debt. Network Rail and the Government argue that the vast sums being borrowed and subsequently spent on the railway are to make up for decades of underinvestment by British Rail, but industry spectators fear that the company will never be able to repay its borrowing, and creditors may force it into administration once again, further fuelling calls for a full-scale renationalisation, which the Government has repeatedly rejected.

[edit] Railway Stations

Network Rail owns more than 2500 railway stations on the National Rail network. Management of most of them is carried out by the principal train operating company serving that station, but it manages directly 17 of the largest and busiest.^[2] These are:

• Birmingham New Street
• Edinburgh Waverley
• Gatwick Airport
• Glasgow Central
• Leeds
• Liverpool Lime Street
• London Bridge
• London Cannon Street
• London Charing Cross
• London Euston
• London Fenchurch Street
• London Kings Cross
• London Liverpool Street
• London Paddington
• London Victoria
• London Waterloo
• Manchester Piccadilly

[edit] Management team

John Armitt is chief executive of Network Rail. He is believed by a survey sponsored by The Sunday Times to be the highest-paid public-sector employee in the UK^[3]. Armitt’s salary and bonus of £878,000 - rising to more than £1m^[4] when pension contributions are included, overtaking Adam Crozier, chief executive of Royal Mail.

On 2006-12-12, John Armitt announced that he will leave Network Rail at the end of July 2007; he will be succeeded by Iain Coucher, the current deputy chief executive.^[5][6]

Ron Henderson is the current Finance Director and Peter Henderson (no relation) is the Projects and Engineering Director

[edit] Training and Development

Network Rail have several training and development sites around Britain. These include sites in Newcastle and Larbert which provide refresher courses, and train staff in new equipment. Advanced Apprentice Scheme trainees are trained at HMS Sultan in Gosport, using Royal Navy facilities. Network Rail bought a residential centre from Cable and Wireless in the Westwood Business Centre near Coventry for management training.

[edit] Grayrigg derailment

Main article: Grayrigg derailment

On the evening of 23 February 2007, a Virgin Trains service from London Euston to Glasgow Central derailed near Oxenholme in North West England. The train was the 1715 service from Euston and was a Class 390 Pendolino.^[7] The train was carrying 111 passengers and 4 train crew. There was 1 fatality and several passengers were seriously injured. The preliminary Rail Accident Investigation Branch report concluded that the accident was caused by a faulty set of points.^[8]

On the Sunday, Network Rail checked up to 700 sets of points across the country as a "precautionary measure"^[9] saying later that "nothing of concern" had been found.^[10] Then on the Monday, Network Rail released a statement in which its Chief Executive, John Armitt, described how the organisation was "devastated to conclude that the condition of the set of points at Grayrigg caused this terrible accident".^[11]

[edit] References

[edit] External link

• Network Rail Web site