Re: BHP nailed down to National tracks - "The Age" Article

[mauried@commslab.gov.au (Maurie Daly)]

In article <36d3a1f7.1359432@news.netconnect.com.au> krel4203@netconnect.com.au (Krel ) writes:
>From: krel4203@netconnect.com.au (Krel )
>Subject: Re: BHP nailed down to National tracks  - "The Age" Article
>Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 07:42:05 GMT


>>>In today's Business section of "The Age"
>>>at 
>>
>>>http://www.theage.com.au/daily/990224/bus/bus10.html
>>
>>
>>This is a good article and it brings up a couple of interesting points.
>>National Rail are yet to make a profit and are experiancing increased annual 
>>losses.

>Slightly misleading. NRs losses have increased by much less than the
>state 'setup' payments have decreased. Also NR have decreased the
>overall loss on interstate rail freight from many hundreds of millions
>(IIRC $600-700m) to around $20m now in five years. An improvement but
>still along way to go. 

>>Under these sorts of conditions NRC should be making respectable  profits,so 
>>whats wrong.?


Yes , the basic thrust of my comments was not to criticise National Rail , but 
to point out that even when you are doing everything right, you still make 
losses.
This shows just how unlevel the playing field is.
There are simply too many variables which are totally outside NRCs control 
and the same variables will be outside any new buyer of NRCs control either.
No doubt many people will try and compare a privatised NRC with the other 
privatised Rail operators who are making profits , or in the case of Freight 
Victoria yet to make a profit .
This is not really a fair comparison,as all the other privatised operators 
have a lot of control over their costs,as they have track leases, as distinct 
from running rights , which means that a lot of the vagaries of track access 
regimes and charges dont exist.
As far as Marks comments go about sacking staff, to save $20M in wages would 
require around 400 staff to go , which is 30% of NRCs total staff. (assumes an 
average sal of $50K).(Doesnt include redundancy payments)
I dont know what are the percentages of admin staff so this may be possible
Interestingly NRCs staff numbers of around 1200 is very close to currently 
what Vline freights staff numbers are as well.
We may be able to guage what will happen by what happens when the new 
owners of VLF start running things.

Unfortunately , from what Ive seen over my working life , generally when an 
organization downsizes, its the people who actually do the work that are first 
shafted , and the administrators stay behind.

Are there any restrictions on who is allowed to buy NRC ?
Could it , for example be bought by Freightcorp or Qrail.
Boggles the mind a bit.

MD