Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
MR IAIN
COUCHER, MR
PAUL PLUMMER
AND MR
GRAHAM SMITH
3 NOVEMBER 2004
Q80 Clive Efford: The use of grinders,
these things called Spenos, on trains makes it very difficult
to identify cracked rails. You have to use ultrasound now, where
one of these machines has been on the track?
Mr Coucher: No, it is the opposite.
We do ultrasonic inspections either with train mounted systems
or manually where it is simply cheaper. We now systematically
use train grinding to take out imperfections in the rail which
can be detected by ultrasonics. One mechanism by which you fix
defects in the rail detected by ultrasonics is to grind them out
using the grinder. Grinding had been neglected for some time and
we have been investing heavily over the last two or three years
to restore a rail head management system.
Q81 Clive Efford: Anecdotal information
I have had is from rail engineers who say visual inspections are
now very difficult because of the grinders, because they grind
the surface smooth and you cannot see the actual cracking.
Mr Coucher: The grinding takes
cracks out of the rail. We supplement our inspection regimes with
ultrasonic inspections which we do either with a person walking
along the track with a manual device or train mounted systems.
We do not rely on the human eye to detect cracks in the rails
any more. We do, however, have a precautionary check which looks
at other things on and around the railway, but to rely on the
human eye to identify cracks in the rails is very, very inefficient
or inappropriate. The technology we have got now looks through
the rail, the railhead of the rail, below the rail, to identify
cracks which could result in breakages rather than relying on
the human eye to detect.
Q82 Clive Efford: It is heavy usage,
not just deterioration over age that actually causes cracking?
Mr Coucher: It is heavy usage.
Q83 Clive Efford: The cracking is caused
by more usage on busier lines?
Mr Coucher: Cracking occurs more
on more heavily used train tracks and is also a function of the
type of trains that you put down it.
Q84 Clive Efford: Is there a specific
type of rolling stock that is likely to cause cracking?
Mr Coucher: What leads to poor
railhead conditions, and cracking is not the only issue here,
is really to do with the stiffness of the bogeys that the train
sits on. It is not the train type; it is the way in which the
bogeys are set up. We know what trains run over it, we model all
of those, and our inspection regimes, our grinding frequencies,
are dictated by the types of trains that run over it rather than
simply relying on anecdotes and gut feeling.
Clive Efford: Thank you.
Q85 Ian Lucas: Who is responsible for
station buildings?
Mr Coucher: Let me try and unpick
this one. Network Rail owns all 2,504 stations on the network.
Q86 Chairman: 2,504?
Mr Coucher: At the last count.
All but 17 of these are leased. Whilst we own them and we have
the renewal responsibility, all but 17 of these are leased to
train operating companies that manage the stations themselves.
The 17 that we do manage ourselves are the major mainline stations
like King's Cross, Paddington, Leeds, Edinburgh and places like
that. The responsibility for maintaining and operating the stations
lies with the individual train operating company but that is under
a leasehold arrangement that we administer and they have got certain
restrictions over what they can use it for and what they can do.
Q87 Ian Lucas: What about vacant buildings?
If I wanted to use a building at a station that was not used by
anyone else, perhaps it is semi-derelict, who would I approach?
Mr Coucher: The starting point
should be Network Rail: "Can we talk to Network Rail about
the use of a vacant building?" If it is vacant it means that
it is not being leased to the train operating company. There are
one or two parts of the network where the property and the land
it sits on is either derelict or disused and actually resides
with the SRA and was non-operational, which was not transferred
to Railtrack at privatisation. That is owned and looked after
by a company called British Rail Properties Residual Limited,
which is a wholly owned SRA subsidiary. The starting point is
always come and talk to Network Rail because we will know the
identity of those people.
Q88 Ian Lucas: How does Spacia fit into
this?
Mr Coucher: Spacia is a wholly
owned Network Rail company which generates income for investment
on the railways from the redeployment of spaces underneath railway
arches. They generate around about £80 million a year in
income to Network Rail which we then use as part of investment
in the rest of the railways.
Q89 Ian Lucas: I have come across situations
myself in my constituency, and also we met a group at Frodsham
in Cheshire when we were doing the Rural Railway Inquiry, where
a number of organisations have had real problems trying to access
buildings for community use and have encountered large delays
in dealing with Network Rail. Is that a problem?
Mr Coucher: It has been a problem.
Q90 Ian Lucas: Why has the problem occurred?
Mr Coucher: There are two or three
problems really. First of all, frequently we do get approaches
on buildings that we do not own and we then have to route them
back to the relevant SRA part of British Rail Residual Properties.
Secondly, the disused properties and land do form an important
part of our income stream. We will always try and either generate
commercial income from the reuse of these buildings or dispose
of them to generate income that we need. Quite often we get people
approaching us suggesting they would like to have it at peppercorn
rent and we are saying "No, we want to get a commercial rent
for that" and that starts to get more difficult. Thirdly,
I think that as an organisation we have been particularly difficult
to engage with and we are going to establish a single point of
contact for anybody who wants to have the possibility of using
surplus property and/or space inside existing property for exactly
that reason, that we have been difficult in the past. It is a
problem which we would apologise for.
Q91 Ian Lucas: You mentioned that you
would always try to maximise the income from any property. Do
you have any other criteria by which you might allow a building
to be used such as social, environmental criteria, or do you have
a duty only to operate on the basis of a profit?
Mr Coucher: We got a regulatory
settlement this year and it was a lot of money, I appreciate that,
but in the settlement the Regulator expects us to generate probably
two to three billion pounds over the control period in income
from third party sources and, therefore, we look to make sure
that our shortfall investment over our grants and fares income
comes from these sources. Our primary driver is to get a commercial
return on property like that. Having said that, if we cannot then
we do look for alternative uses and we do work with various partners,
Community Rail Partnerships, to find alternative ways of doing
that. It is good for us to use these buildings in that regard.
They do not generate any income for us but it is good to have
them occupied and looked after.
Q92 Ian Lucas: Do you ever consider the
objective of allowing another organisation to do up a derelict
building on the railway line? That may not bring you any income
but it allows the buildings to be looked after.
Mr Coucher: Yes. There are quite
a few instances where we have done that and we do encourage it.
The argument always comes down to two or three things, I guess.
Firstly, there is our belief that we could dispose of the land
and the building itself for income, and people often say we should
keep it and allow them to use it for other reasons and there is
a disagreement about that. Secondly, if we need to retain the
piece of land for operational railway uses in the future there
tends to be an argument about the length of lease that we give
and in turn that affects the investment criteria that people may
use for a disused building. Thirdly is the way in which funds
are generated. Quite frequently there is an expectation that Network
Rail contributes a significant proportion of the redevelopment
of that individual location for which we, of course, have no funds.
Q93 Ian Lucas: Will the Railway and Community
Trust play a role in dealing with these buildings?
Mr Coucher: Yes. The Railway and
Community Trust that they have been talking about is a way in
which they can attract investment funds from outside the railway
to generate and regenerate buildings of that nature. If we can
find those instances we will work with the relevant authorities
to free up those buildings under long leasehold or peppercorn
rent to enable them to use that, subject to us having the ability
to recover it with sufficient notice for any operational needs
we may need in the future.
Q94 Chairman: I want to bring you back
to safety before I bring Miss McIntosh in. Are you going to allow
the continued use of foot crossings rather than insisting on footbridges?
Mr Coucher: At the moment we do
continue to allow some foot crossings. The possibility of introducing
new ones is more problematic for us because the health legislation
restricts us from doing that. The continued use of footpaths across
the railways is always subject to a risk assessment which is a
function of the frequency of trains, the speed of approach and
how much time people can see to get across.
Q95 Chairman: Are you going to look at
the standards on the way that rural railways are run or are you
going to maintain your existing stance?
Mr Coucher: At this point the
standards for allowing continued use of footpaths is something
that is driven by standards outside of our control, they are health
and safety standards.
Q96 Chairman: You say that Network Rail
is going to be reorganised, with operations managed through routes
more closely allied to the map of train operators. Is that going
to encourage smaller infrastructure works?
Mr Coucher: That in itself will
not contribute to undertaking smaller infrastructure works. What
we have now got is a national organisation that we deliver renewals
on and we are looking to find ways in which we can do smaller
renewals locally with the existing workforce that we have inherited
since we took that back in-house.
Q97 Chairman: So could you look at a
different system of track access charges on Community rail routes?
Mr Plummer: The review of the
structure of costs and charges that is just starting with ORR
is looking particularly at the structure of costs and whether
they are different on the rural railways in terms of the incremental
effect of running a train on a rural railway compared to elsewhere,
and then it will move on to whether that should be reflected in
different charges for the use of that railway.
Q98 Chairman: You were here listening
to the evidence about Jonkoping and the way that they do
their calculations. Do you think that has something to be said
for it?
Mr Plummer: I think I will need
to look into it more, to be honest.
Chairman: Yes. Miss McIntosh?
Miss McIntosh: Thank you, Chairman. Presumably
if we are interrupted by the vote we will continue?
Chairman: Yes, but I do not want to keep
our witnesses here very long, we do have other witnesses. If we
can keep the questions short, thank you.
Q99 Miss McIntosh: Mr Coucher, could
I ask you what the level of investment was in renewals and maintenance
of rural railways four years ago as compared with today? If you
are not able to give us the figures today, could you write to
us?
Mr Coucher: Yes. If I could adopt
the latter option, please, that would be great.
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