Re: National Rail Corp

["Grahame Ferguson" <grahamef@users.mcmedia.com.au>]

Grahame Ferguson wrote in message ...
>
>The point that we are all missing is that the creation of the NRC was
>supposed to be the start of seamless, one stop shop for rail freight to
>effectively and collectively to compete with road transport.  Instead we
now
>have a mongrel hybrid of a national rail system.
>
>The NRC are in competition with other rail operators.   They do not own any
>rail lines.  For them to operate a train from Sydney to Perth, they have to
>negotiate with 3 Rail Access Authorities, and has to comply to 3 different
>Accreditation authorities.  Hardly an integrated system designed to beat
>road transport.
>
>In Victoria we have the Department of Infrastructure, responsible for rail
>safety accreditation.  Victrack the owners and operators of the track.
>Freight Victoria who have a lease on their rail infrastructure, and are
>resposible to maintain it.  National Express who run the country passenger
>trains, half the suburban trains, and half the Trams.  Hillside Trains who
>run the other half of the suburban rail network.   Confused??    Victoria
is
>home to the mongrel hybrid.
>
>Governments are trying to promote competition.  But the bottom line is that
>Rail is competing against itself.  The Road Transport Lobby must have been
>the policy makers for the Federal and Victorian Governments.  The Road's
>competition (the Railways) has been reduced to an unco-ordinated
>self-destructing industry.
>
>If Rail Freight is to survive it must be run by one or two major players.
>If Queensland Railways bought the NRC, well at last they will be backed by
>pro-railway management who run an integrated railway. If FreightCorp bought
>it, then it would have a railway with assets and experience, and then it
>would have reduced competition by buying it , not by eliminating each other
>through bunkruptcy.
>
>Its true that all Governments stand accussed, and the slack stagnant
>attitude of past State Railway Bureaucracies, dug railways into a very deep
>pit.  But the new counter measures are counter productive and destructive.
>
>We have taken an unprooved model from the British at our peril.   In the
US,
>Freight Railroads own the tracks that they run on.  Mega - Mergers are the
>trend in the US, not downsizing, and they are doing this to increase their
>profits, and fight the common enemy - The Truck.
>
>Passenger Railroads are Government subsidised, as they provide a low
>pollution efficient mode of transporting the masses.  US cities are now
>rebuilding their urban railroads, reversing a 40 year trend.  As we are 20
>years behind in the trend.  We still build Freeways as the answer to our
>transport problems.  Who would want to be an asthmatic in Los Angeles
today,
>or Melbourne in 20 years.
>
>For National Rail to be a force in transport, it has to own and control the
>tracks over which it does its business.
>
>Imagine what would have happened if the NRC had of been given ownership and
>control of its tracks.  Imagine further if the NRC board had head hunted
>overseas for someone like Ed Burkhart as its first CEO.  But I don't want
to
>think of, is its probable politically expedient sell off, left to uneven
>market forces.  Would any of the NRC sale money be directed to new
>interstate trackwork?- Fat chance!!
>
>In the end, the question we must all ask, is possibly how, can the array of
>non-integrated large and small Rail operators, who face a wall of access
and
>accreditation bureaucracies ever survive in a limited market, especially
>when road has had all the advantages.
>
>
>Regards, GF.
>
>