THE recent AusRailPlus conference and­­ exhibition staged in Brisbane gave a fascinating insight into the current state of play and thinking in Australia which is more akin to a continent of several countries rather than one nation due to its mixture of track gauges, the different political climate in each state, the diversity of railways and types of operation, and the mixture of manufacturers.

THE resurgence in rail transport that has gathered real momentum in the last few years can be attributed to several factors, but one of them has been rail’s ability to reinvent itself through the use of new technology. I would argue that rail is actually making more technological progress than the other modes of transport and on several fronts.

RAILWAYS and politics have always been reluctant bedfellows for a variety of reasons, such as state ownership or funding, or because of regulation and legislation. But it is an unequal relationship partly because of the politicians’ ability to pass new laws and partly because railways often find it difficult to be heard or state their case forcefully enough.

THE chairman and CEO of Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC), Mr Ou Chin-Der, is to be congratulated on turning around the fortunes of Taiwan’s high-speed railway. As he explains in an exclusive interview with IRJ, it is a real achievement to go from making losses during the first four years of operation to produce sufficient profit to be able to start repaying debt in challenging trading conditions.

SERIOUS railway accidents often have repercussions well beyond the immediate cause. Their rarity - reflecting the generally high standard of railway safety - usually points to some wider deficiency. This is certainly the case with the fatal crash near Wenzhou, China, on July 23. The world’s first fatal accident on a dedicated high-speed line was bound to attract attention, but it came only three weeks after the opening of the world’s longest high-speed railway, the 1318km Beijing - Shanghai line, which itself has been the subject of significant press reporting due to poor reliability.

THE formation of the Independent Regulators Group - Rail (IRG-Rail) by 15 national railway regulators should bring some comfort to the line-up of private rail operators preparing to launch open-access passenger services in Europe, often in the face of stiff opposition from incumbents, not to mention embattled open-access railfreight operators.

THERE is little doubt that South America’s rail network would be a lot smaller than it is today had several governments not taken the bold step to privatise their railways in the 1990s. Years of under-investment coupled with a failure to restructure national networks from bloated bureaucracies into commercial enterprises had taken their toll and put much of the continent’s railway on the road to oblivion.

THE government-commissioned report by Sir Roy McNulty into the cost of running Britain’s railways comes to the damning conclusion that British taxpayers and passengers have been paying far more than necessary since the catastrophic Hatfield derailment in 2000, caused by poor track maintenance which led to an explosion in costs and the eventual collapse of Railtrack. Overall McNulty says Britain’s railways cost 40% more than they should and this must be cut by 30% within seven years.

THE International Association of Public Transport (UITP) and its members are to be commended for their bold initiative - known as PTx2 - to double public transport’s market share worldwide by 2025 which in effect will mean a threefold increase in journeys. But there is really little choice as half the world’s population live in cities, many of which are already choked with traffic and the pollution they cause.

 

ISLAND nations often have an idiosyncratic view of the world and a tendency to act and think differently from others. Britain adheres to this trait, which is particularly evident in its current attitude to rail transport, where politicians and civil servants make decisions which should really be left to experienced railway professionals. This makes decision-making very protracted and costly, leading to higher costs and sub-optimal choices.

THIS month we mark IRJ’s 50th anniversary with a series of articles by some of the leading people in the railway industry who chart half a century of progress but also take a look at future prospects.

RAIL traffic is recovering in most parts of the world following the recession and financial crisis of late 2008 and 2009, and the outlook for the rest of this decade is particularly encouraging with growth forecast in all sectors.

ANYONE who attended last month’s excellent UIC world congress on high-speed rail in Beijing will be in no doubt about the gathering momentum in the deployment of high-speed rail around the world both in terms of the growing number of projects and the technical advances being made.

 

THE world congress on communications-based train control (CBTC) staged in Paris last month by Global Transport Forum gave delegates a good overview of the current state of development with this relatively new technology and its deployment. But the debate during the conference revealed the varied ways in which metro operators are adopting and using CBTC leading to the question: are operators making the best use of this technology and if not, why not? Some of the issues raised can equally be applied to other new technologies such as ERTMS.

THE European Union’s decision to allow competition on international rail corridors, which came into force at the beginning of this year, is already stirring up acrimony even before the wheel of a competing train has turned. Some countries, such as Austria, Britain, Germany, Italy and Sweden, have already gone a stage further by allowing competition on domestic inter-city routes, but while the legal framework may be in place to allow competition, all too often new private operators discover numerous obstacles to starting their services.

IF more evidence is needed of the growing resurgence of rail transport, then look no further than the August issue of IRJ. Expansion is underway in many parts of the world from Asia via the Middle East and Africa to Europe and across the Atlantic to the Americas. For someone who has been writing about railways for 30 years, the contrast between now and the 1980s could not be greater as the outlook back then was far from certain and in many cases decidedly bleak.

 

THE decision by the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) to wheel out its big hitters at the European Parliament in Brussels last month to argue the case for more stable funding of railways was commendable. While the five CEOs chosen for the task put the case forcefully, unfortunately the exercise also revealed a deepening schism between Europe’s state-owned railways on the future of liberalisation and its consequences for rail transport.

 

RAIL transport has demonstrated a remarkable resilience to the arctic blasts from the global economic and financial crisis. In many countries, rail has bucked the downturn as it has benefited from government economic stimulus packages. But can rail continue to prosper in the light of the latest crisis in the Euro currency zone and the dawning realisation by many governments that they need to reduce their bloated budget deficits and fast?