Analysis of Mediarail.be - Signalling technician
(version française disponible ici)
More news, in english en french, on the facebook page of Mediarail.be
More news, in english en french, on the facebook page of Mediarail.be
Surprising? In
the fall of 2013, we can already form an opinion about the railway landscape so
criticized by opponents of the European Commission. And the partial result that
emerges is that it is the neighboring state railway companies which have much
positioned better than private companies. A little outlook.
Privatization?
We can start
with the infrastructure. The only known example was the actual privatization of
British infrastructure within Railtrack, in 1996, the disaster management has
stalled and returns the rail network in state hands since 2002, via a company which
is called “private” but is in fact a quasi state agency to British sauce,
without shareholders and called Network Rail.
For the rest, Europe
of the railway have only two private infrastructure companies throughout the
Continent: Eurotunnel and TP Ferro (Perpignan-Figueras). And really : Eurotunnel
is actually the only "integrated" railway private company, as
operates train services, the famous shuttle in the Channel and a few freight service
through its subsidiary Europorte. This is not the case of TP-Ferro which are
only a concessionary. All other major expensive projects like the viaduct
Öresundsbron (Malmö-Copenhagen) and the Swiss Lötschberg tunnel are pure
products of public authority. Contrary to popular belief, the BLS AG company which
is the owner of the tunnel is owned by private shareholders for only up to
22.5%, the rest being divided between 55.8% for the canton of Bern and 21 7%
... for the Swiss Confederation. Needless to say, the myriad of small
industrial or locals networks on the continent cannot be equated to any
privatization in the broad sense, because many of them live in closed system,
as into steel factory or in some industrial and port areas .
 |
BLS is largely
used by many state railways, BLS, CFF/SBB or DB-Schenker, for example (photo
Mike Knell)
|
Countries that
have separate rail infrastructure from their incumbent have any form of privatization.
All are 100% in the hands of state power, even if the recruitment is carried
out on a new contractual basis. Social partners agree on the need to develop a
modern and integrated railway sector in Europe, but unions are critical of the
decline of work protection levels. Many old monopolies were turned into
state-owned companies but under private law employment relationships. In this
stage many opponents claim that is a tactic to weaken the relationship of
power. But a transport policy must be based only on relationship of power ?
In all cases,
all the infrastructure is therefore logically belong to national or regional
public authority, which the European Commission has never disavowed given the
capital-intensive which are required for this activity. But then, what Europe is it
a gain for public railway companies?
Responsibility
It is
therefore in the side of transport exploitation for further analyse. Until recently,
cooperation regulated by COTIF (1) has a major handicap : the responsibility, legal and financial. These
two aspects do not appear as prominent in the 60s and 80s. As a
network providing a train to the border, the neighbor absolutely must take over
the train whatever the price. Managing its own network, the neighbor made him
follow the schedule and the route that he decided himself - indeed under its
responsibility - to the destination chosen by the original owner. With this fragmentation,
it was impossible to establish a coherent and comprehensive trade policy : social
rates of a country disappear with his neighbours ! Internally, the stakeholders
maintained relations through a codified and lacking flexibility administrative
process. In
addition, the joint management was criticized by the very people who had created,
told about many problems very difficult to justify (2). The European rail is
still a juxtaposition of ultra-regulated domestic parts, like the Benelux
train.
 |
Ex Connex is
now Veolia Cargo Deutschland which is 100% owned by SNCF (photo Wolfro54)
|
But the world
has changed and the increasing of judicialization and financialization of
society led
companies, including state-owned entreprises, towards more transparency, more
accountability in the management and protection against litigation. The
railway, which is not a regal power, therefore did not escape the change,
despite strong resistance. The result is that instead of cooperation, there are
international companies or economic interest groups who were called to handle
international traffic, such as for example Lyria Elypsos, DB AutoZug GmbH,
Thalys and Eurostar.
Successive
legislative developments called historical companies to adapt these parallel
structures. Thus,
Eurostar has gradually turned into a "Ltd" under UK law, ...55% owned
by SNCF. In July 2013, the same SNCF and SNCB decided to "adapt"
Thalys as a company in 2015, the Dutch and the Germans have finally withdrawn
their partnership. DB has now its subsidiary "DB International" which
with his ICE will compete with Thalys and Eurostar on their marketing area. They
together will to confront to the Thello high-speed service, italians having the
intention to expand out of the Peninsula. In all examples, we see that the locomotives
cross borders and trade policy is focused line by line, depending on the user
client. The
staff is more specialized and placed under subsidiary, which is essential for
proper management and avoid to confuse the roles. But what remains the attention
is the presence exclusively of the state-owners companies, giving guarantees to
those who feared the loss of state-owners railways ...
Expands
to the neighbor
Open
Access which spreads gradually on the Continent also makes the state-owner’s
neighboring companies happy. Already mentioned in another post (3), we know
that the SNCF owns 20% of Austrian private Westbahn and also the Italian
private NTV, the first competitor to high-speed operator Trenitalia. This
company responded by canceling its partnership in the Artesia night train
Paris-Italy service in 2011 and took over the traffic through his subsidiary Thello. This
Monopoly between colleagues do not stop there. It is on the field of regional or
freight services that is particularly effective. As a reminder the excellent
paper of Reinhard Hansen (4), in Germany, a number of public transport
companies which are called “private” are in the hands of public authorities ...
from neighboring countries !
.jpg) |
All is said
…(photo Nik Morris)
|
Example with Veolia Cargo Deutschland which is 100%
SNCF, ITL Eisenbahn which is also 100% SNCF or TX Logistik which now owned 100%
FS Trenitalia group. In 2011, the semi-public group Veolia-Transdev accounted for alone
almost 34.6 million trains / km in Germany. We might think that England lives
alone with her railways. Think again! Dutch Abellio, 100% NS - so Dutch State
- (5) holds the majority in Great Anglia and shares in the Merseyrail. Keolis
100% SNCF, took 35% Govia (bus and trains around London) and 45% in the
TransPennine Express Franchise (6). But more particulary it is Arriva, 100% Deutsche
Bahn - German state – which holds shares on the Chiltern Main Line and also 50%
on the London Overground and bus networks in London itself. The
ultra-liberal John Major rail program in 1996 has delivered fifteen years later
this paradoxical lesson that it is the neighboring public-owners services which
have much positionned better, holding up to 25% shares of the British public
transport. In
the editorial of August of Railway Gazette International, Chris Jackson also
confirmed that at least four non-British state-owned rivals are active in the
UK rail sector.
We observe in
passing the well-known phenomenon with freight companies : DB Schenker
continues to expand and is also present in the UK while the Austrian public
company RCA (Rail Cargo Austria) has swallowed his Hungarian neighbor,
resurrecting inadvertently the old empire onto a Railway mode (7).
 |
| Arriva in UK. This company is owned DB AG, state of Germany (photo ndl642m) |
Another
unexpected public service finds a big advantage to Open Access: the city of The
Hague (Den Haag)! Unhappy to be out from the high-speed Thalys network and
without international connections, it just started a service request to connect
to Brussels. The winner? The German Arriva, 100% DBAG, which will have maybe
the honor to introduce the Stadler trains while the current public service NS
merely is just aligning its poor IC3m cars which are now aging (8).
Conclusion
With this surprising
elements, Reinhard Hanstein have fun to talk about "cross-border
nationalization." All in all, this is what we might wish the best for
public service: expanding its market and, if necessary, to repatriate more
profits back to the parent company. A real Europe without borders for
state-owners railways ? They get to a good start with this giant monopoly
between colleagues, and the game is certainly not over. We stay tuned...
(1)
The COTIF - Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail - is an
international convention to establish common legal rules to rail transport.
This formal document adopted a new version in 2006 to comply with European law.
Any amendment request parliamentary approval of each member state, which is
relatively heavy.
(2)
For example this incident: a sleeping car with a mileage of axles which due to
expire, was refused at the German border by the train’s technical surveyor,
with results that the happy travelers were transferred to the remaining seats
available in … a couchette-car. That happened in the middle of the night and
providing 1h30 of delay to the train.
(3) Open Access, state in 2012 (only in french)
(4)
"Cross-border nationalization" of railways operators? Update railway
1-2/2013 p22 to 24
(8)
Since the autumn of 2013, NS and SNCB provide 10 daily-returns service to
replace the deceased Fyra International Ansaldo-Breda, SNCB not doing mystery
of its high preference for only a Thalys service on the route Brussels-
Amsterdam. Arriva would spell definitely the end to the current Benelux trains
hauled.