I would like to share the highlights of Global Rail 2004 Seminar held at Brisbane on 11^th May 2004, which I attended. The theme was the strategic role of rail in the value chain.

          The event was jointly hosted by Queensland Rail, one of Australia’s largest and most innovative transport operators, and UIC. It is Australia’s only public owned freight and passenger railway. It’s heavy haul freight operation increases year on year, with a loading of 156 million tones. It runs the world’s fastest scheduled narrow gauge passenger train, the tilt-train.

          In the opening session Philippe Roumeguere, Chief Executive, UIC outlined the ‘Perspective on world-wide Rail Industry Reforms’. Prof.Derek Scrafton, Adjunct Professor, Transport Systems Centre, University of South Australia, delivered a lecture on ‘What do Governments all over the world want from railways’. Derek Scrafton was the Director General of Transport for South Australia for 25 years and has also had a stint with the Railway and the Highway Division of the Canadian Ministry of Transport before his appointment as Professor. In his talk he identified the Government objectives as Economic efficiency, environmental benefit, equity and other social imperatives and political objectives. He focussed on the issues to be resolved which are as under:

·        Conflicting priorities and roles

·        Competitive neutrality

·        Specification of standards

·        Opportunity costs

·        Horizontal and/or vertical separation

·        Core business and / or specialization

          Bob Scheuber, CEO, Queensland Rail shared the Queensland Rail’s story of success   through competitive reforms. Queensland Rail has developed a contractual framework for the Government intervention. These contracts are referred to as Transport Service Contracts. They have been developed separately for above rail and below rail activities. The contracts agreed with Government provide a “top-up” to the revenue collected from customers. The railway is allowed to collect a total revenue (customers plus government contract) sufficient to meet its full efficient operating cost as well as a return on capital equal to the weighted average cost of capital. In return for funding under the contracts Queensland rail must commit to meeting a range of performance criteria including reliability, quality, safety and efficiency. Transport service contract model is advantageous to both Govt. & QR as it provides transparency, efficiency, certainty and defined performance.

          Christian Wolmar, one of the UK’s leading commentators on transport matters and author  of the books ‘The Great British Rail Disaster’, ‘Stage coach’ and ‘Broken Rails: How privatization Wrecked Britain’s Railways”  spoke on ‘Industry structure- what are the real issues?’. He elaborately covered the ground on British Rail experiment. The aim of  British model was to break-up British Rail, encourage privatization and diminish trade union power. Treasury, with an ideological bent of mind, excluded the Railway Managers from the process. Even in the infrastructural separation, a further split was made between renewal and maintenance, which compounded the problems leading to complete neglect of investment posing safety hazards. In public perception all the companies placed ‘profits before safety’. With cost escalation, performance deterioration and lack of coordination between companies subsidy soared to unexpected levels. The British experiment thus failed miserably.

          The other topics covered were –

·        ‘Economic Regulation in Railways by John Martin, Commissioner, Australian Competition & Consumer Commission.

·        Safety regulation in railways around the world by Ray Metcalfe Halcrow Rail, UK

·        Non-traditional ideas for growing and sustaining railway companies by Ed Burkhardt, President Rail World, inc. USA.

      Ed Burkhardt, is heading a railroad  investment company. He was named Railroader of the year by Railway Age in 1999 and was later named one of 16 railroaders of the century.

The Seminar covered a wide spectrum of topics, so relevant to most of the World Railway systems, with valuable inputs based on experience. It was thus a beneficial exposure for the participants.