Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 399)
MONDAY 14 MARCH 2005
MR JOHN
PARRY, MR
CASPAR LUCAS
AND MAJOR
KIT HOLDEN
Q380 Chairman: I accept that is your
argument, but what is the alternative? That is what I am asking.
Mr Lucas: The alternative, in
my opinion, would be to assess not the system against a different
form of transport but the actual risks associated with the entire
operation, which we are well capable of doing.
Q381 Chairman: What standards would
I use, Mr Lucas? I have a rail that is in existence; I have given
you permission to work on a day when other trains do not have
access: what standards would I use to judge your efficiency and
your safety if I did not use those existing ones that are already
there to protect the public?
Mr Lucas: The judgment to be made
is an informed engineering judgment based on actual risk.
Q382 Chairman: Are you saying that
is not happening, or are you saying that because you are being
judged on a different basis you are neither fish, flesh, fowl
nor good red herring? Is that what you are telling us?
Mr Lucas: Effectively, Madam Chairman,
yes. As I said, the major effort is not being expended in demonstrating
the safety of the operation but in going round a long way. It
can be done, but it is an unnecessarily long way to go round to
measure it against something else.
Q383 Chairman: We accept that. Have
you now managed to get it running on this rail?
Mr Lucas: No.
Q384 Chairman: I thought it had been
accepted you were able to do it on a Sunday.
Mr Lucas: No. It has operated
on this same track under engineer's possession, which means that
it cannot carry passengers, and which for the purpose of our demonstration
does not count as running.
Q385 Chairman: What do we now need
to get further?
Mr Parry: An objective—and
we might continue on this long, long road, which is already four
years long with at least four months and probably longer to go,
on the basis that we will try and make the thing behave as if
it was a train, even though the comparison say between other lines
or networks where you have 125 miles an hour with vehicles weighing
500-600 tonnes is a totally different energy environment to a
short branch line where the vehicle is doing 20 miles an hour
and only weighs 12 tonnes. The factor of difference is 10,000:1
in terms of energy and risk.
Q386 Chairman: If I were in control
of both those lines, a mainline and a branch line, would I not
have to bear in mind the fact that your vehicle would have to
measure up to some of those same restrictions?
Mr Parry: I will hand this over
to Major Holden.
Q387 Chairman: Major Holden, a child's
guide, please.
Major Holden: The easiest way
to illustrate it is from the Manchester MetroLink system where
for 1,600 metres the system runs on Railtrack or Network Rail
controlled infrastructure from Deansgate Junction down into Altrincham.
The trams they use are a very different construction with very
different crash-worthiness and resistance to the mainline standards.
They were accepted—and dare I say I helped give them permission
to do so—on the basis that they were running to all intents
and purposes on a self-contained network.
Q388 Chairman: There is no interface
with the main system, therefore it was quite permissible.
Major Holden: Correct, because
you are judging that vehicle in—
Q389 Chairman: In a vacuum.
Major Holden: Well, against itself
or against its own part of the system.
Q390 Chairman: Why can that not be
done with this present vehicle?
Major Holden: It could be, apart
from the licence regulations and the railway safety case, which
Network Rail have for operating, because the Stourbridge town
branch is still theoretically part of Network Rail infrastructure.
Q391 Chairman: You are saying that
were there an innovation system, were there a specialised rail
line that was independent of the main system, none of these problems
would arise.
Major Holden: Correct.
Q392 Clive Efford: Major Holden you
mentioned how easy it is to introduce a bus service in comparison.
Is it not true that if someone wants to introduce a bus service
under current regulations that exist outside of London, they take
all the risks? You are asking other people to take the risks with
the development you are seeking.
Major Holden: Not necessarily,
no. What we are asking people to do at the moment is to permit
us to operate the vehicle taking presumably the revenue risks,
and to operate it on Network Rail infrastructure for a period
to be determined—at the moment it is one year. We have to
go through a load of regulatory hoops which are quite properly
in for train-operating companies; but the difficulty arises as
we have been discussing, that the vehicle is not "the same
as" the heavy rail vehicles. We submit that there is no need
for this. A bus company does not have to go through that same
regulatory set of hoops; it goes through different ones, I agree,
but they are not as long. If it buys a bus which conforms to regulations,
they can operate that bus. Our vehicle does not conform to the
Network Rail standards.
Q393 Chairman: It is an ultra light
vehicle. Who does it serve? It does not take as many people as
a full tram; it is not as tough as a full train.
Mr Parry: It is really rather
like in the aircraft industry; you have all different sizes of
aeroplanes, from 747s down to Dakotas or very little ones. You
really need vehicles which match the service requirements.
Q394 Chairman: They do have the advantage
of not requiring to run on rails if they are up in the air, although
they are constrained where they can fly but on the whole they
try and avoid one another.
Mr Parry: Yes, but rails are just
two bits of metal lying in the ground to guide the vehicle. They
are just inherently safer than a road system. They are lowering
energy use and there are many advantages and there is no reason
why the use of railways should be monopolised by a railway industry
which demands very elaborate procedures when it is not necessary.
Q395 Mr Stringer: In regard to your
ability to get these vehicles on to the rail, last Wednesday the
Minister said that there is absolutely no problem to have mixed
running, trams with trains, light rail with trains, ultra light
rail. What would you say to that response?
Mr Parry: Theoretically it ought
to be no problem, and I think within previous ministers in the
Conservative administration there was a sense of encouragement
and that there was a need for it—"go ahead and do it".
We have really got bogged down.
Q396 Mr Stringer: What should the
Minister do, though, if that is what you believe should happen?
You are saying in practical terms it is not happening. How should
we change the world so that we can get your vehicles on to tracks?
Mr Parry: That should not be the
objective, to get our vehicles on to tracks; the objective should
be to drive down costs in public transport and choose the appropriate
mode. We feel we have done that. I would say this is a Gordian
knot situation; and this is where this Committee might be helpful.
We struggled again and again to try and get through the regulatory
framework and it keeps on changing. We are not trying to buck
the system; the system keeps on changing. The answer should be
for the line to be leased from Network Rail to a suitably constituted
organisation that will take over the administration of the line.
There are examples of that. The Wensleydale Railway uses Network
Rail infrastructure, but it is leased to the Wensleydale Railway,
to do what they want to do. This now should be the procedure,
because it seems to be beyond the ability of all the different
safety, regulatory and operating organisations within the national
network to do something quite simple, and that is just give the
approval for the vehicle to run on the network as it is.
Q397 Ian Lucas: But if you leased
Network Rail's track to somebody else, that would not remove that
track from the influence, depending where we are in the system,
of either the Health and Safety Executive or the Railway Inspectorate,
would it? Are they not part of the problem?
Mr Parry: The Railway Inspectorate
has approved the vehicle. In 2002 the vehicle was moved onto the
branch under engineer's possession. The inspecting officer in
charge of light rail of the Railway Inspectorate came to the branch
and carried out the necessary tests. He put it through the Disability
Discrimination Act Regulations and it passed. He even tested leaves
on the line, and the whole lot, clearances etc and on Christmas
Eve 2002 Myles Sibley, the chief panjandrum of the Railway Inspectorate,
wrote an approval saying "this vehicle is approved for carrying
the public". Our bugbear right the way through has been the
infrastructure owner, which has changed its corporate nature three
times over the years and there has been this confusion.
Q398 Chairman: I do not think that
was necessarily done entirely to complicate your life; there were
one or two other minor reasons for that, I think.
Mr Parry: No, it just feels like
that!
Q399 Chairman: Did Mr Webber give
the Bristol Electric Railbus Company any explanation of the decision
not to fund the service?
Mr Parry: I do not think that
Mr James Skinner's company has taken any interest in the Stourbridge
branch as such. He has had a similar struggle, I believe, trying
to get out—
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