Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-125)
MR IAIN
COUCHER, MR
PAUL PLUMMER
AND MR
GRAHAM SMITH
3 NOVEMBER 2004
Q120 Chairman: So you have not done any
exercise that says "If we did this we could cascade various
engines down into the passenger sector"?
Mr Smith: We have a number of
engines which are of some antiquity, over 40 years old, which
we put up for sale to the highest bidder and a number of those
engines have been purchased by other operators for use on the
rail network for passenger services. Also, we hire some of these
older engines to the passenger operators, for example in the Welsh
Valleys, and recently we hired engines and coaches to Arriva trains
who are operating services between Harrogate and Leeds and Leeds
and Carlisle. It is a market in which we are active and it represents
a small percentage of our business in terms of local passenger
operators.
Q121 Chairman: Mr Smith, does the freight
grant system make a difference between some of your services being
viable economically and not viable economically?
Mr Smith: It makes a limited amount
of difference. I would not say that it is the ultimate difference
between success and failure. What a track access grant can do
is merely to offset the cost of track access rather than any other
costs. The company neutral revenue support is to support the inter-modal
business. I repeat: it is our belief that the grant that offers
the greatest benefit is the freight facilities grant which allows
our customers to invest in terminals and wagons.
Q122 Chairman: What is the biggest barrier
that you face in terms of expanding freight?
Mr Smith: It is to be able to
provide a reliable service on a network which has got sufficient
capacity and capability. One of the biggest issues is to be able
to connect customers to the network at a price which is affordable
to the customer and to the operator.
Q123 Chairman: What do you need to guarantee
that?
Mr Smith: I think we need something
which we are exploring through the Rail Review, which is all parties
to connect into the network—Network Rail, the customer,
particularly the health and safety authorities—to be able
to demonstrate that it can be done efficiently and effectively,
not to take the amount of time it has taken in the past.
Q124 Chairman: Mr Coucher, before I let
you go, you would be aware that there are allegations being made
this week in the media, and most Members of Parliament treat allegations
in the media with a certain amount of circumspection, but they
are being made, that there have been no changes in your maintenance
regime, that there are still major difficulties with areas like
the Forth Bridge and that given this information you do not take
action. What do you say to that?
Mr Coucher: Chairman, it is right
that there have been some allegations made in the media this week
that will be repeated on television later in the week. From Network
Rail's perspective there were three specific allegations. The
first was that inspection regimes on the Forth Rail Bridge are
less safe than they were in the past. The second was that there
were elements of track fastenings on a piece of track near Guildford
which, in the journalist's mind, were not appropriate. The third
was about efficiencies of work gangs in the Reading area. On the
inspection regimes on the Forth Rail Bridge, the allegation here
was that daylight patrolling has now been replaced by a combination
of inspections at night using rail-mounted Land Rovers and in
this particular case we have safety certification to prove this
is correct and better because, as we said before, the use of technology
on trains actually makes the inspection regimes better so we know
more about the track from train mounted inspection regimes and,
therefore, we no longer need to do quite as many daylight patrols.
Track fastenings in Guildford: the allegation was there were parts
of the track that were unsafe. Within one hour of the report coming
into the confidential reporting line, an engineer was on site.
He inspected it and concluded that no action was required, it
was within tolerance, the maintenance regime would pick up the
odd one or two movements that had been in the mountings and that
was normal. The journalist subsequently went back and he was not
happy, again, with what had been done. We sent an engineer out
to walk the track with him and, again, we are certain that the
track was within tolerance and was safe to operate. The third
was efficiencies of work gangs in the Reading area and there were
one or two allegations that safety certification had not taken
place, that safety briefings had not taken place. We were able
to evidence to those making the allegations that the individual
concerned had received no less than 15 individual briefings on
aspects of track safety and we were satisfied that the processes
had caught the anomalies. Whilst we cannot stop the programmes
going out, we are satisfied from our work and our investigations
that passenger safety and rail safety was not compromised.
Q125 Chairman: In view of the fact that
the general public do not have access to the detailed information
that you do—these allegations will be made, they were made
today in a national newspaper and they will be repeated tomorrow
on the television and we have not seen that programme but the
kinds of comments that will be made are fairly clear—I hope
that you will make every effort to ensure that your views are
very clearly marked by the general public so that the question
of safety and, above all, confidence in the railway system is
maintained. You and I both know that it is very important that
the customer understands that this is fundamentally a safe system
and the problems that have arisen are now being addressed. Can
I take it that is a correct representation of what you have said?
Mr Coucher: Yes, we agree with
that. We have got a very significant campaign of communications
through the media, to talk to journalists, to talk to stakeholders,
to talk to yourselves, as to what we are doing about this and
why we can be so certain that our safety has not been compromised.
Chairman: Mr Coucher, you know that you
will have to face us again so I am sure you have not said that
lightly. Thank you for coming and for bringing your colleague.
Mr Smith, thank you very much.
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