Changing Trains

The decision to rebrand the Channel Tunnel Rail Link as High Speed 1 appears to be starting to pay off. Quite intentionally, the name created an assumption that the UK’s first 300 km/h railway would in due course be followed by more.

Not that there has been any shortage of proposals. Lobby group Greengauge 21 put forward a suggestion for High Speed 2 between London and Birmingham in June 2007. Network Rail has a working group looking at options for increasing network capacity, with a brief that includes examining the case for high speed lines. And last year Greengauge 21 put together a consortium of businesses and local authorities to fund a feasibility study of five potential corridors.

At long last the Department for Transport seems to be starting to recognise that high speed rail may have a role in the UK. With the multi-modal ‘national networks’ steering group convened by Transport Minister Lord Adonis expected to report shortly, Secretary of State for Transport Geoff Hoon announced on January 15 that a company called (surprise, surprise) High Speed Two is being formed to consider options for a new line between London and Birmingham, as the first step in a route which could later serve Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Scotland. High Speed 3, 4, 5 and 6 may follow, we hear.

At first glance, Hoon’s announcement was more about mitigating protests against government backing for a third runway at London’s Heathrow airport and further expansion of motorway capacity than a specific endorsement for high speed rail. But with decades of experience to draw on from countries such as Japan, France, Germany and Spain, where construction is still proceeding apace, the main question to be addressed is how any new lines could best fit into the UK transport mix.

The opposition political parties and many other bodies believe high speed rail could avoid the need for the third runway at all, as rail could substitute for short-haul domestic and international flights. But with or without the extra runway, there is little doubt that Heathrow needs to be properly plugged into the inter-city and international rail networks in the same way as rivals such as Schiphol, Frankfurt, Paris or Zürich.

Hinting at an announcement later this year about electrification of the Great Western Main Line between London, Bristol and South Wales, Hoon suggested that HS2 and Crossrail could converge at a new Heath­row International hub on the GWML. Given that this line passes about 4 km north of Heathrow, a better option might be to copy what the Swiss did at Zürich 20 years ago and re-route the railway under the airport.

One problem is that the volume of air traffic which could be diverted to rail is not enough in itself to justify a new line. Most rail business would still be city centre to city centre, unless the proposed hub can attract large volumes of connecting traffic from the surrounding region. And a 20 km westward kink to serve Heathrow would add a significant time penalty for passengers between London and the north. So there will be plenty of topics to debate at our forthcoming conference on Growth & the Capacity Challenge, being held in London on March 10-11.

London & Continental Railways has already demonstrated with HS1 the benefit of having a dedicated company to champion a high speed rail project. Let us hope that HS2 will have the same effect, although at this stage there seems little urgency. There are suggestions that work is unlikely to start on the ground before 2015, with opening dates of 2027 or later being floated.

A reminder of what can happen without clear leadership is painfully apparent in the Netherlands, where there are still no services running on HSL-Zuid long after the original planned opening date of October 2006. With a multitude of different companies responsible for building, equipping and operating the line, not to mention commissioning ETCS Level 2 equipment on both track and trains, target after target has been missed. There have been acrimonious claims for compensation, and regular ministerial statements to parliament.

We reported in Railway Gazette International last April that NS Hispeed was hoping to ramp up services during 2008, starting with an interim Amsterdam – Rotterdam shuttle using leased Traxx locomotives pending delivery of the 250 km/h Albatros trainsets from AnsaldoBreda, followed by diversion of Thalys and Benelux services to the new line this year.

On December 19 the concessionaire announced the fares for its shuttle service, revealing yet ano­ther target date of July 1. A further two years may elapse before the whole Thalys fleet has been retrofitted with ETCS, and there is still no indication of when the Albatros sets might be ready.

For all the politicians’ brave words about boosting railway investment to help stave off the economic downturn, and rail’s long-term role in a sustainable transport mix, there are clear signs that times will be tough in the next few months, particularly in the freight business.

We hear reports that traffic is falling sharply as the liquidity crisis starts to bite. Already badly affected are the steel and automotive sectors, and there has been a sharp drop in the movement of raw materials, which does not bode well for railways heavily dependent on bulk flows serving traditional industries.

We can expect even fiercer competition, as road hauliers and shipping lines are also hungry for work. And these modes have traditionally demonstrated an ability to react much more rapidly to changing markets, flexing their operations and cutting rates in ways that the rail sector finds difficult to match.

Open access operators seem to be more responsive to customer requirements, but only where the legislative structure enables them to compete effectively. On December 11 the European Commission published a proposal for a ‘regulation on competitive rail freight priority’ which would give commercially-sensitive freight traffic greater rights to timetable paths and priority over passenger services on designated corridors. This is to be welcomed, but we wonder why infrastructure managers and train operators have to wait for a rigid rule to be imposed rather than taking the initiative themselves to meet a commercial imperative.

We reported in the December issue of Railway Gazette International about the glacially slow progress being made in reforming European rail freight. As for developing new lines or dedicated freight corridors, the inconclusive final report from the European Commission’s New Opera research project suggests that little progress has been made after four years of consultation, and concrete proposals are years away from any meaningful implementation.

Whilst open access competition is proving successful over relatively short distances, winnning long-haul business to rail requires operators to work together, as RZD President Vladimir Yakunin suggested in November. But co-operation should not be at the expense of a competitive ethos, and it seems that some major state railways still have little appetite for reform.

With Fret SNCF haemorrhaging business to open access players and forecasting a loss of €300m for 2008, SNCF has been pointing the finger at DB, claiming that Euro Cargo Rail has been able to poach traffic whilst its owner enjoys state support in a far from transparent home market. DB in turn lodged a complaint with the European Commission about unfair competition and a lack of liberalisation in France, and it has been joined by FS which seems to have been stung by SNCF’s decision to buy a stake in Italian high speed promoter NTV.

SNCF’s weak position was underlined on November 20 when the French finance ministry’s general directorate for competition and fraud prevention raided the Fret SNCF offices, investigating claims of anti-competitive practices in the allocation of rolling stock and train paths.

Writing to staff last month, SNCF President Guillaume Pepy implicitly rejected proposals for reforming the relationship between SNCF and RFF, claiming that the railway provided public services in the national interest and should therefore not be broken up or privatised. Pepy had pinned his hopes for staff reform on demonstrating that making Fret SNCF more competitive would create more jobs rather than putting them at risk, but the recession has clearly dealt a blow to his argument.

Railways large and small need to use this recession to streamline their activities, trim out inefficient practices and get costs under control, ready to grasp new opportunities as the economy recovers.

One thing is certain: the competition is not waiting. With effect from November 24, the Danish government has allowed the operation of 25 m long lorries on selected routes in that country, as part of a three-year trial. And a ‘blueprint’ on freight policy issued by the UK Department for Transport on December 16 revealed that DfT was studying the potential for increasing the length of lorries there too. With the European transport ministers failing to agree last month on revisions to the Eurovignette directive designed to reflect the external costs of road transport, there seems little prospect of the railways being offered a level playing field in the near future. The only way to stay in business will be to compete.

Labels: railways economy efficiency competition