NETWORK RAIL WILL WORK FOR STEAM
SIR PETER HENDY continues his appraisal of the steam movement. During a trip along the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway, the chairman of Network Rail tells NICK BRODRICK how the infrastructure owner will assist preserved railways and the National Railw
WE CAN’T GIVE AWAY VALUABLE PUBLIC PROPERTY FOR NOTHING, BUT WE CAN GIVE STUFF TO PRESERVED RAILWAYS THAT REALLY HAS NO VALUE
In your speech at the Heritage Railway Association awards in February, you spoke of Network Rail’s commitment to preserved railways… PH: The ‘old’ Network Rail, which was allegedly a private company, but with no shareholders was, on occasion, very generous to the railway heritage movement. When it was effectively nationalised, a lot of people - rightly, I think - became a lot more cautious about what they should sell and give. That clearly resulted in some things that seemed nonsensical, like scrap rail from Truro being sent to March, in Cambridgeshire, and then offered for sale to the Helston Railway, which then has to send a lorry up from Cornwall to retrieve it. We’ve had a think about that, and we’re nearly at the end of a process of devolving (either giving or selling at cost) redundant assets to preserved railways, and that process will be run by the route managing directors. I’ve told all of the preserved railways that they need to make friends with their route managing directors because they will be the people who will be able to help them. We can’t give away valuable public property for nothing, but we can give stuff to preserved railways that really has no value, and we can certainly sell stuff at cost. In truth it would be a lot cheaper for the Helston Railway to send a lorry to Truro to pick up some old rails than it would be for us to take them to Westbury or March. That process will be in place quite shortly. Right now we’re making the system work for ourselves, but as soon as it’s up and running we’ll tell everybody. We won’t give away stuff that has value, but we are interested in being good neighbours to the preservation movement, and we can do other things as well. For example, there are opportunities to use preserved railways for staff training. Some NR and London Underground people did some design and construction work for the Rother Valley Railway at Robertsbridge. They learned a lot from that project, and the RVR got a fabulous station out of it, which has moved the Kent & East Sussex on towards bridging the gap. NB: …So there’s a community aspect to all this, and a recognition that NR should be doing this sort of thing? PH: Yes, it should. We’re a big UK-wide organisation; many people who work for us are very interested in the railway, and we all live within that community, so it’s really important that we play our part. We just have to be careful not to incur any costs. We can’t spend public money unwisely, otherwise we’ll be in big trouble. But we can be sensible and intelligent about doing things that make a difference.