Rail Industry Focus

Dinner at the Roundhouse

RTM reports from Dinner at the Roundhouse 2012, with keynote speeches from Anna Walker, chair of the ORR, who spoke of the need for the railways to ‘move forward positively’ after the West Coast franchising debacle, and Prof Richard Parry-Jones, chairman of Network Rail.

The annual black tie dinner at the famous Derby Roundhouse went off with a bang, as industry professionals came together to share their successes and forge new connections.

Held by Mainspring and headline sponsors Garrandale, the event was attended by hundreds of operators, manufacturers and suppliers from around the industry.

Keynote addresses were given by the Hon Anna Walker, chair of the ORR, and Professor Richard Parry-Jones, chairman of Network Rail, and guests included shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle and Andrew Wolstenholme, chief executive of Crossrail.

A four-course meal was followed by a set from comedian Ardal O’Hanlon, best known for his role as Father Dougal McGuire on the sitcom Father Ted, and networking into the early hours.

Dinner at the Roundhouse also supports the charity Railway Children, which provides support for street children around the world. On the night of the dinner, guests raised over £3,200 for the charity through a prize draw.

A positive future

Walker started her keynote address by acknowledging the recent negative media surrounding the railways, following the cancellation of the West Coast contract award to FirstGroup, but said: “I don’t want to dwell on the ins and outs of that.”

She said the two reviews into the incident and its impact on the wider franchising programme would get to the bottom of the errors.

“Whatever emerges as a result from all of this, it seems to me that this episode has actually affected the public view of the railways – that’s clear from the feedback that I get. And to the extent that that’s true, we all have a role in trying to ensure we move forward positively. It seems to me that the events of last week are particularly sad, given how much the railways have to be proud of.”

Walker went on to highlight the growth curve in rail, which she said “most sectors would die for – particularly in the current economic climate”, as well as continued government investment, as reasons to boost the industry’s confidence.

As a regulator, she maintained that the industry could not afford to rest on its laurels, but celebrated how far safety, passenger satisfaction, reliability and performance had all come.

Sector-wide improvement

Walker said: “It isn’t just those who run the infrastructure and those who run the trains over them, but those who supply the cars, who think about the design of the next trains; it is a sectorwide effort that has achieved all that.

“That our railways can help our economic growth has been a key part of it. They can link cities and local communities and have a really key role to play in the environmental improvements that we want in this country.”

She highlighted the importance of HS2’s linking effects across the country and concluded that there was “an enormous amount for us to be proud of and carry forward”.

Despite this, the industry is “strangely unconfident”, Walker suggested, as well as the most complicated she had ever worked in.

“[It is] a complex sector with a lot of regulators, providing incentives and crucially those incentives not aligning – not encouraging people to really work in partnership with each other. I think it’s grasping that partnership for change, whereby we can all make a real difference to our 21st century railways.”

She concluded that the future has “the ingredients, if we can all grasp it, for it to be really good”.

Reduced regulation

In terms of the ORR, Walker stated: “We are a regulator that passionately believes that we should do less.”

That will require a different way of working and incentivising with Network Rail and the TOCs, as well as suppliers to move things forward “innovatively and efficiently”.

“As a regulator we want to get out of some things that we currently do [which] we believe the sector could do better,” she said. Giving the example of track access, she highlighted that this could be handed out to Network Rail as a system operator, allowing the sector to do more itself.

Steep learning curve

Prof Richard Parry-Jones said he was climbing a “very steep learning curve” into the rail industry, with the bulk of his career being in the automotive sector, and commented on how much had been achieved over the last decade in terms of safety, performance, reliability and cost effectiveness.

In 2002, fewer than eight out of 10 trains were on time: now it’s more than 9 out of ten. In 2002 there were 19,000 trains on the railways every day. Now it’s nearly 25,000, an increase of almost 30%.

He described passenger numbers up 40% in a decade as “stunning growth”, with demand from companies looking to move their goods by rail increasing by 60% in the same time. It was a positive phase in the industry, he said, with “unprecedented investment” from government, but acknowledged there is still “much to do”.

Prof Parry-Jones called for a continued and “relentless focus on safety” and reducing rail costs by improving capacity, asset utilisation and productivity. This can be achieved by making better use of track and platforms, as well as building to address bottlenecks, he said.

Intensive collaboration

“We’re moving rapidly towards intensive collaboration, as we all recognise the necessity to work together, to drive performance to the next level. The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) and our deep alliancing are just some of the facets of this intensive collaboration,” he said.

Commenting on the cancellation of the West Coast competition, Prof Parry- Jones expressed his hope that this would not lead to “unstable consequences” and the issues would be resolved as quickly as possible. He said: “Most importantly, [my hope is that] we don’t lose confidence in our industry.”

Touching on freight, he said that Network Rail had not forgotten its importance, and detailed a special focus to work with the FOCs to ensure devolution can improve their performance as well.

“We are keen to introduce competition and contestability into everything we do. We believe that drives us to improve better and proves that we deserve to be part of the industry’s future.”

Finally, he called for greater investment in R&D, to expand the “pockets of brilliance” and maximise the potential of a “goldmine of opportunities” in research. He said: “The economic value to the customers and the taxpayer of a concerted approach to exploiting the opportunities of technology is enormous. Returns for us could be huge.”

The event is back next year on October 10: for more information and to book your place, contact Roy Rowlands on 0161 833 6320 or [email protected]

Tell us what you think – have your say below or email us directly at [email protected]