Rail track

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Sign indicating the location of a bridge maintained by Railtrack

Railtrack was the name of a group of UK companies that owned the tracks , signals , tunnels , bridges , level crossings and most of the stations on the privatized UK rail network from 1994 to 2002 .

The company was founded as part of the privatization of British Rail , the UK's national railway company. Railtrack plc was temporarily listed in the FTSE 100 Index , the UK's most important equity index . On October 3, 2002, however, the main part of the company was sold to Network Rail , after Railtrack, in particular due to an underestimation of costs for the modernization of the West Coast Main Linehad got into serious financial difficulties and three serious train accidents raised the public's minds about whether a privately owned and profitable company could maintain the usual safety standards in rail transport. Network Rail, unlike Railtrack previously, is a not-for-profit company, for which 116 mostly public corporations guarantee. The parent company Railtrack Group plc, which has been renamed RT Group, was finally dissolved on June 22, 2010.

history

After the fundamental decision of the Conservative government of Prime Minister John Major , Railtrack took over control of the railway infrastructure of the state railway British Rail , which was in the process of being dissolved, on April 1, 1994 ; from 1996 the company's shares were traded on the London Stock Exchange . From the start, Railtrack was heavily criticized for the poor quality of the maintenance work.

Southall, Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield train wrecks

The serious train accidents in Southall on September 19, 1997 (six dead, 150 injured) and Ladbroke Grove on October 5, 1999 (31 dead, over 500 injured) reinforced the public perception that the level of safety on the British rail network since privatization has declined sharply. The accident in Ladbroke Grove would have been prevented by the automatic train control system GW ATP , which was available but not installed for cost reasons , and which in this case would have triggered an emergency brake. After the 1997 Southall railway accident , this was the second serious railway accident to occur on the Great Western Main Line, just a few miles east of the first accident site. Both railway accidents made a significant contribution to shaking public confidence in the privatization of the railway . The Hatfield train accident on October 17, 2000 (four dead, 70 injured) turned out to be the starting point for the collapse of Railtrack. The cause of the accident was material fatigue on a rail. As a result of this accident, the rails on the entire route network had to be examined for breaks and replaced; In addition, the maximum speed was reduced on many routes for several months. It turned out to be particularly problematic that Railtrack had decided not to keep specialist knowledge within the company, but to outsource it and buy it externally if necessary. Railtrack therefore no longer independently had the necessary specialist knowledge to be able to assess how great the risk was that such an accident could recur elsewhere. The cost of the repairs was over £ 580 million . The company's share price then collapsed and Railtrack was no longer listed on the FTSE 100.

Modernization of the West Coast Main Line

Route overview of the West Coast Main Line

At the same time as this renewed train accident, the costs for modernizing the West Coast Main Line got out of hand. According to the analysis of the privatization critic James Meek, it was important for the IPO in 1996 that Railtrack had to arouse the conviction among investors that Railtrack, unlike British Rail, could fundamentally overtake the West Coast Main Line. The West Coast Main Line, one of the UK's most important rail links, is one of the oldest rail lines in the world connecting cities. Construction started back in 1833. The last major modernization of these lines was electrification , which was carried out from 1959 to 1974. There were no further modernizations, although in Meek's opinion the main reason for this was the unwillingness of the British government to provide British Rail with the necessary funds. In particular, the signal boxes as an essential element of the safety of train movements were in urgent need of overhaul . The predominantly US-American advisors of the IPO made the recommendation to rely on driving in moving distances for train protection in the future . With this procedure, which is also called driving on electronic sight or moving block , the capacity of a route can be maximized and the technical equipment minimized, since stationary blocks and their track vacancy detection systems are dispensed with. The trains then determine the location of their train end themselves and send it quasi-continuously to the next train. Taking into account its braking distance, this calculates the point from which the speed must be reduced. However, there was a major implementation problem: Driving in moving spatial distances was largely untested in rail transport. Meek points out that even in 2014, such systems are only limited to a few inner-city transport systems such as the Docklands Light Railway and the Shanghai Metro. Even these were only installed at a time when the modernization of the West Coast Main Line should have long been completed. Most of the continental European railway companies, which were not in the hands of the state, came to the conclusion in January 1995 that driving in moving distances was not yet developed sufficiently to be used in train traffic. From Meek's point of view, this decision was not noticed by the mostly US-American consultants and executives of Railtrack, because there was a lack of exchange with these experts. The consultants and top management of Railtrack mostly assumed that continental European railway companies were also dealing with the introduction of this technology and that Railtrack would only be the first railway company to introduce this technology. The warning from in-house experts was overheard, with unclear competencies, the downsizing of employees and internal quarrels as a result of the privatization. The consultants warned that failure of this technology would, on the one hand, significantly increase the costs of modernization, prevent the speed increase and would not lead to the hoped-for increase in capacity. These were at least not noticed by the public. The critical questions that were asked in the British House of Commons in February and March 1995 about Railtrack's plans also had no effect.

The consultants responsible had assumed that Railtrack would commission a consortium familiar with such techniques to further develop driving in moving distances, to raise the funds for the financial implementation and also to take over the project management. However, this was rejected by the responsible CFO, who considered the return promises of this project to be too tempting and assumed that Railtrack itself would have sufficient specialists for it. He persuaded his fellow board members to leave project responsibility with Railtrack. Only two consortia were commissioned to develop the corresponding technology. It was assumed that these consortia would work together and thus accelerate the technical development of the necessary technologies. This turned out to be a false judgment, the two consortia saw themselves as being in competition with each other and did not cooperate. At the same time, Richard Branson's Virgin Trains won the tender in February 1997 to operate the routes on the West Coast Main Line. In October 1997, Railtrack and Richard Branson announced how the future development of the West Coast Main Line should take place. Railtrack would spend £ 1.5 billion on track overhaul and install migratory distance travel for a portion of Virgin Trains' profits for £ 600 million on the route. Together with further improvements, this should result in high-speed lines on which a speed of 125 miles per hour (approx. 200 km / h) can be achieved from 2002 and 140 miles per hour (approx. 225 km / h) from 2005. Manchester would then have been reachable from London in an hour and 45 minutes' drive. Railtrack also committed itself to high fines if this goal was not achieved by 2005.

It was already clear in 1999 that this goal was not achievable: That year, Railtrack announced that the cost estimate was now at 5.8 billion British pounds and had largely abandoned the idea of ​​installing moving space-distance travel. In 2001 the cost was estimated at £ 7.5 billion. The modernization of this important British train connection was only partially completed in 2008 and at the time had cost 9 billion British pounds, most of which was borne by the British taxpayer.

Indebtedness and forced liquidation

These and other factors meant that the initially profitable company quickly amassed a mountain of debt of £ 534 million and was forced to seek subsidies from the UK government . Railtrack sparked heated controversy when it nonetheless paid dividends of £ 137 million to shareholders in May 2001 . The Labor government felt betrayed. Transport Secretary Stephen Byers put Railtrack plc in liquidation on October 7, 2001, following an application to the High Court of Justice . Critics accused the Labor Party of deliberately driving Railtrack into bankruptcy in order to nationalize at least part of the British railway system.

Transfer of the assets to Network Rail

Railtrack maintenance vehicle

Network Rail was founded with the aim of taking over the assets of Railtrack plc. The British government did not rule out private companies from bidding on Railtrack. Given the limited availability of precise financial metrics for the company being acquired, the political implications of such an acquisition, and the UK government's obvious desire for Network Rail to take over tracks, stations, tunnels, bridges and signal systems, there were no private bidders. Network Rail acquired Railtrack plc on October 3, 2002.

The takeover was welcomed by UK rail users' stakeholders at the time. However, other customers, such as freight forwarders, were more cautious because they feared that Network Rail would be a corporate structure that would make wrong decisions without consequences.

resolution

Railtrack Group plc, the parent company, continued to exist under the name RT Group. On October 18, 2002 , the shareholders resolved to voluntarily dissolve the company. The proceeds from the sale of the remaining lines of business such as real estate trading and telecommunications were used to compensate shareholders at least in part. The company's stake in the Channel Tunnel Rail Link was also sold .

Railtrack shareholders formed two interest groups to demand higher compensation from the company. Both sought compensation from the British government for having been deceived when it was founded in 1994, when John Major was still Prime Minister. The larger group, Railtrack Action Group , withdrew its lawsuit when Railtrack plc offered £ 2.62 in compensation per share. The smaller group, the Railtrack Private Shareholders Action Group , insisted on their original demands. The trial of the Department of Transportation in the High Court of Justice ran from June 27 to July 21, 2005. The court announced on October 14 that the lawsuit had been dismissed. The interest group decided not to contest the decision.

literature

  • James Meek: Private Island - Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else. Verso, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-78168-695-9 .

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Britain Puts Price On Railtrack Shares . In: The New York Times , May 2, 1996. Retrieved May 5, 2015. 
  2. ↑ Six dead in Southall Train Disaster BBC News September 19, 1997
  3. ↑ Ladbroke Grove Crash BBC News October 11, 1999
  4. ↑ Four dead in Hatfield Train Crash BBC News, October 17, 2000
  5. ^ Railtrack shuts down West Coast Main Line BBC News, October 25, 2000
  6. ^ Railtrack shuts down West Coast Main Line BBC News, October 25, 2000
  7. ↑ Railtrack drops out of FTSE 100 as shares fall 17% on brokers' note  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Independent, June 6, 2001@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / findarticles.com  
  8. ^ Railtrack shares dive to all time low Telegraph, 6 June 2001
  9. ↑ Meek: Private Island , Chapter: Signal Failure; Privatised railways , ebook position 933–953.
  10. ↑ Meek: Private Island , Chapter: Signal Failure; Privatised railways , ebook position 967.
  11. ↑ Meek: Private Island , Chapter: Signal Failure; Privatised railways , ebook position 1036.
  12. ↑ Meek: Private Island , Chapter: Signal Failure; Privatised railways , ebook item 1260.
  13. ↑ Meek: Private Island , Chapter: Signal Failure; Privatised railways , ebook item 1036–1102.
  14. ↑ Meek: Private Island , Chapter: Signal Failure; Privatised railways , ebook item 1109.
  15. ↑ Repair costs spiral to £ 5bn BBC News, December 15, 1999, accessed May 5, 2015
  16. ↑ Meek: Private Island , Chapter: Signal Failure; Privatised railways , ebook position 897.
  17. ↑ Meek: Private Island , Chapter: Signal Failure; Privatised railways , ebook item 878.
  18. ↑ Network Rail closer to Railtrack takeover BBC News, September 18, 2002
  19. ^ Think tank lays into Network Rail structure Guardian, September 16, 2002