rail - where's the maintenance?
WORKERS, JUNE 2003 ISSUE
The results of the break-up and privatisation of railway maintenance work are a near doubling of costs and increasing problems and complaints due to poor standards.
The planned budget for the five-year period until 2006 was £15 billion but the cost will now be £25 billion. The train operators have severely criticised Network Rail's maintenance regime in a letter which lists a catalogue of complaints about poor standards of work, project delays, bureaucracy and increasing costs.
With a fragmented service and complete reliance on private sector firms to do essential maintenance the government is caught in a trap. Increased regulation simply results in greater charges. Reality may be forcing a change. When one of the maintenance contracts came to an end, a directly employed maintenance organisation was created to provide skills and information on real costs.