Summary
Led by:
Dipl.-Ing. Helmut HAINITZ, Deputy Director General of the ÖBB, Austria
Participants:
OGILVIE Nigel
 Eaton Ford Consultants, GB
Keynote address: "Lessons learnt by Privatisation of British Rail"
AUGUSTOWSKI Tadeusz
President of the Infrastructure Division of PKP, Poland
GOOSSENS, Hugo
General Manager, NV TUC-RAIL, Belgium
JUNKER Klaus, Dipl.-Ing.
Member of the Board of DB-AG, Operations and Line Management, Germany
ORAM David
Assistant Chief Engineer Production, CSX Transportation Inc., USA
RUSSELL Wayne E.
Vice President & Chief Engineer, Florida East Coast Railway Co., USA
ZUZIC Michael, Dipl.-Ing.
Head of Track Division, ÖBB, Austria
With his keynote address "Lessons learnt by Privatisation of British Rail" Mr. Nigel Ogilvie gave a pointed description about the development of Railtrack.
This was followed by a lively discussion led by Mr. Hainitz.
To begin with, the latter stated that in principle all railways have gone through similar experiences with the privatisation. Due to efforts of the politicians to influence the financial situation of the railways positively, changes in legislation often cause counter swings in the opposite direction. However, as the election periods of the politicians are very much shorter than the "life cycle" of the track installations, the effects of these altered framework conditions do not become apparent until much later.
Mr. Hainitz pointed out that even with full outsourcing, which is frequently regarded as the ideal solution, the railways as the contract-giver should still retain a competent team of specialists who can appraise the work performed and supervise the acceptance. Today, the railway is no longer a protected partner on the market. Increasingly it has to be managed according to the principles of the private economy.
The opportunity was missed earlier to form an alliance of the railways in the various activities. Much of this is now being laid down in directives from Brussels, which could have been dealt with previously by the railways themselves.
Participants from Europe and the USA then presented short statements. To begin with,
Mr. Augustowski (Poland) described the restructuring of the PKP into several joint-stock companies which he illustrated to the audience with organisation charts. The infrastructure is managed by the PKP - PLK A.G.. The lines are made available to the operators. These are: PKP - Cargo, PKP - Intercity, PKP - Regional and private firms. The maintenance firm and the energy utilities were separated out, whereas the railway surveying, the real estate and the servicing remained with the railway. The lines are currently being adapted to the requirements of the EU. Special emphasis is being given to the upgrading of the internationally laid down corridors. Mr. Augustowski stressed that the infrastructure must be managed by one economically responsible office. It is also essential that uniform principles apply for the technology and for determining the line usage fees.
Mr. Junker (Germany) posed the question "Why do we no longer manage to think in terms of a system?" and stated that the railway must be regarded as an overall system and therefore the thinking in terms of a system must be retained. In future, junior recruits should again be trained more in this direction. In his opinion, the privatisation on British Railways was a good move and it can be seen to be the right way on Deutsche Bahn too. However, the responsibility for the condition and the safety of the installations should not be placed in private hands. The profits should also not be allowed to become the sole measure of all things in decisions regarding the technical necessity of maintenance work.
Mr. Goossens (Belgium) pointed out that the track possessions becoming necessary later are an important criterion for the choice of the right track construction. In this respect, regular track maintenance disrupts the rail services far less than the possible prematurely needed re-building and renewals.
Mr. Oram (USA) presented his network which is mainly single track and operated at maximum 40 - 60 mph. To reduce the operational hindrances in the network, track possessions were introduced on consecutive sections of track, e.g. 3 x 10 hours track closure, with the application of modern track maintenance technology and with maximum output.
Mr. Zuzic (Austria) looks calmly to the future, since in his opinion all railways are on the right track. The important goal is to lower the costs further while retaining the same high quality. To achieve the economic targets, the know-how must remain in the enterprise. A minimum quantity of insourcing by the railway of not less than 10% should be retained to assure this. It is essential to continue to promote the system concept in the railway.
Mr. Russel (USA) operates a relatively small network built solely using concrete sleepers which have already been lying in the track for over 30 years and some of which now need to be exchanged.
Mr. Hainitz summarised the comments and came to the conclusion that the problems on the various railways are all very similar.
Compared to the huge volume of transport over great distances in the USA, the costs of the European railways for transports in a complex combination of networks must be evaluated differently.
In the following discussion, Mr. Mundrey (Indian Railway) posed the question as to the ideal type of organisation.
According to Mr. Hainitz there is no ideal type of organisation because so many different structures and conditions have to be taken into consideration in each case. In this respect the railways are caught in a dilemma between complete state ownership and full privatisation.
In Mr. Hainitz' opinion, every railway is attempting at the present time to find its own solution and to hold its own against the respective owners. The goal is to raise the quality while lowering the costs at the same time. Parallel to this, the wishes of the customer must be considered and here especially the customer's demand for punctuality and reliability must be satisfied.
The problem of financing the "railway system" remains which on the one hand can be categorised as preserving its basis of existence and for which, on the other hand, the goal has been set to become fit for the stock exchange. Unfortunately there is no patent solution that is generally valid for this quandary.
The summary of the podium discussion was compiled by
Dipl.-Ing. Mr. Wolfgang Thiele
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