Network Rail

Network Rail Limited
legal form	Limited
founding	2002
Seat	London , UK
management	Peter Hendy (Chairman) Mark Carne (Managing Director)
Number of employees	34,000
sales	6.2 billion GPB (2013)
Branch	Railway infrastructure
Website	www.networkrail.co.uk

Network Rail is a not-for-profit company in the United Kingdom that owns the property, plant and equipment of the former state-owned British Rail . Network owns the entire infrastructure , consisting of tracks , signals , tunnels , bridges , level crossings and most train stations , but not the rolling stock . On October 3, 2002, Network Rail took over the facilities of Railtrack , a subsidiary of the Railtrack Group, which had been in liquidation since October 2001, for £ 500 million .

The company has the legal form of a company limited by guarantee . It is privately operated, but has no share capital. Instead of shareholders appear guarantor ; in the case of Network Rail, these are 116 mostly public corporations. Any profits are reinvested in the expansion or renovation of the operating facilities.

Difference Between Network Rail and National Rail

The term Network Rail should not be confused with the term National Rail . Network Rail is a legal entity that owns the fixed assets on the UK rail network. National Rail, on the other hand, is a brand name that denotes the entirety of all passenger transport offers of most railway companies.

The Network Rail and National Rail networks are geographically very similar, but not entirely congruent. Most of Network Rail's routes are freight, some are exclusively freight. Some routes are not covered by National Rail's service, in particular the Channel Tunnel Rail Link , Heathrow Express , Tyne and Wear Metro and London Underground . Conversely, there are National Rail offers that do not run on the Network Rail network (e.g. parallel service to some London Underground lines).

Corporate development

In October 2003 Network Rail took over all maintenance work that had previously been carried out by private companies. The reasons were concerns about the quality of the work carried out by some companies and massive cost overruns. Network Rail asserted that this was not a step towards re-nationalization . But many observers interpreted this move as a sign that the privatization of the British railways had passed its peak.

This impression was reinforced when Network Rail opened an operations center at Waterloo station in London in February 2004 , which is operated jointly with the railway company South West Trains . This was the first such close cooperation since the gradual privatization between 1994 and 1997. Since then, five more such operating centers have been set up, operated jointly by Network Rail and a rail company ( Croydon , Glasgow , London Blackfriars , London Liverpool Street and Swindon ).

The renewal of tracks and signal systems is usually carried out by private companies that have signed a contract with Network Rail. The largest current project is the full, multi-billion pound modernization of the West Coast Main Line between London and Glasgow .

Since its inception, Network Rail has endeavored to expand its in-house engineering expertise. Various fatal train accidents, which are caused by poor project execution by private companies, led Network Rail to terminate numerous contracts or individual companies to voluntarily withdraw from the rail infrastructure business. In return, Network Rail took on these tasks itself.

The company announced in early 2013 that it would invest 37.5 billion British pounds in expanding and modernizing the network by 2019. This is to create the capacity for 170,000 additional seats during rush hour. 4,000 jobs are to be cut to provide counter-financing.

structure

Routes in England and Wales 2014

The route network is divided into 8 geographic regions (referred to as "routes" by Network Rail itself):

Current route network	stretch			Old route network
Anglia	D.		East Anglia	* Route 5: West Anglia * Route 6: North London Line and Thameside * Route 7: Great Eastern
	E.		North London Line
	F.		Thameside
London North Eastern and East Midland	G		East Coast Main Line and North East	* Route 8: East Coast Main Line * Route 9: North East Routes * Route 10: North Trans-Pennine, North and West Yorkshire * Route 11: South Trans-Pennine, South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire * Route 19: Midland Main Line and East Midlands
	H		Cross-Pennine, Yorkshire & Humber and North West (East section)
	I.		East Midlands
London North Western	H		Cross-Pennine, Yorkshire & Humber and North West (West section)	* Route 16: Chilterns * Route 17: West Midlands * Route 18: West Coast Main Line * Route 20: North West Urban * Route 21: Merseyrail * Route 23: North West Rural
	M.		West Midlands and Chilterns
	N		West Coast Main Line
	O		Merseyside
Scotland	P		Scotland East	* Route 24: East of Scotland * Route 25: Highlands * Route 26: Strathclyde and South West Scotland
	Q		Scotland West
South east	A.		Kent and High Speed ​​One	* Route 1: Kent * Route 2: Brighton Main Line and Sussex
	B.		Sussex
Wales	L.		Wales	* Route 13: Great Western Main Line (section) * Route 14: South and Central Wales and Borders * Route 15: South Wales Valleys * Route 22: North Wales and Borders
Wessex	C.		Wessex	* Route 3: South West Main Line * Route 4: Wessex Routes
Western film	J		London and West	* Route 12: Reading - Penzance * Route 13: Great Western Main Line (section)
	K		West of England

Train stations

Network Rail owns almost all of the stations on the National Rail network. Operational management is usually the responsibility of the railway company whose trains run most frequently in the station in question. However, 18 of the largest and busiest train stations in the country are operated directly by Network Rail. These are:

National train stations Birmingham New Street Bristol Temple Meads Edinburgh Waverley Glasgow Central Leeds Liverpool Lime Street Manchester Piccadilly Reading

Railway stations in London London Bridge London Cannon Street London Charing Cross London Euston London King's Cross London Liverpool Street London Paddington London St. Pancras London Victoria London Waterloo

Individual evidence

1. ↑ British railways want to invest billions . In: Handelsblatt . No. 5 , January 8, 2013, ISSN  0017-7296 , p. 18 .
2. ↑ Current route network https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/
3. ↑ Official listing of Network Rail https://www.networkrail.co.uk/communities/same/iegengers/our-stations/

Web links

Commons : Network Rail  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Network Rail website