The War Of The Rails

The War of the Rails

While trains speed us efficiently from A to B, few passengers consider the political friction in the rail industry. That may soon change.

In 1957 the (then) EC launch a plan for a harmonised transport market, one aim of which was a revitalised, integrated European railway. More recent regulations have created the 'Third Railway Package’. This requires each Member State to separate its rail infrastructure from passenger services (a similar division for freight already exists), allow equal access to other countries’ operators and have separate accounting for infrastructure and transport. Initially, the rules will apply only to cross-border high-speed services between, say, Dublin and Belfast, Frankfurt and Paris or Milan and Basle.

The plan is that, from January, rail companies will compete for access slots. That is not as easy as it might sound: trains are long, have strict safety requirements, and the need always to be physically connected to the track inevitably limits the number of available ‘paths’. In addition, modern signalling systems integrate train and track to an ever-greater extent. In Britain, there’s a feeling of déjà vu. As often with things European, the British government got in early: John Major’s Conservative administration introduced the new regime in 1992. This was far from a success, leading to problems of restricted ticketing, competition for train paths and rolling stock, companies opting-out of shared resources (such as the telephone service), compromised safety regimes, too few experienced staff and much more. The result? A recent return to Government control of the infrastructure (still separated from operations) and much stronger regulation. The British situation was made especially difficult as a result of a poorly-thought-out 1960s policy which had resulted in the widespread closure of lines that would, in many cases, have eased capacity and routing problems. The French and German national rail companies (SNCF and DB) dominate Europe. In recent years they have been keen to co-operate - slicing the market by, for example, introducing shared services and creating Railteam, an airline-style alliance. They have also quietly invested in other operators. SNCF has bought into NTV, a new Italian high-speed company while, through its subsidiary Keolis, it shares three English rail franchises; DB has absorbed Britain’s major freight service (renaming it DB Schenker), as well as Laing Rail (operator of the highlysuccessful Chiltern Railways franchise and joint owners of both the Wrexham and Shropshire Railway and London Overground). The approach of 2010 has seen the former friends declare war! DB’s first shot was to announce plans for a competing service to Eurostar (owned largely by SNCF) on Britain’s only cross-border line, High-speed 1; it has now proposed buying London & Continental Railways, Eurostar UK’s parent company. DB, then, asked Brussels to speed-up the opening of national competition (especially in France). SNCF has now fired its own shots, accusing its rival of unfair competition, of illegally ‘pirating’ its intranet to lure train drivers to Germany, and of sabotaging its plan (which already had government approval) to run public transport in Bordeaux. The French, fearful of being marginalised, have suddenly woken up announcing plans for free car and bike hire at stations, though trains to China, Eurostar tickets

that are downloadable by phone and buying a road-haulage company to provide intermodal goods services (all ideas copied from Germany!). As the year progresses, it looks as though rail travel will become more interesting!

Ralph Adam, Jan. 2009