Q & A: Rail repairs

BBC Transport Correspondent Simon Montague explains the implication of rail repairs returning to public control under the administration of Network Rail.

What is the background to this decision?

Network Rail - the company set up by the government a year ago to replace Railtrack - had already decided to take some maintenance back in-house.

It wanted some kind of comparator with the private contractors so it could see what costs it could achieve itself and what costs the private contractors were achieving. It started to accelerate that process this summer but the thinking of the company has now evolved completely.

They have come to the conclusion that the private contractors simply do not deliver the kind of cost savings, the kind of efficiency, which Network Rail believes it can achieve in-house doing this day-to-day job of maintaining the tracks.

Is it purely about the bottom line or is it also about safety?

There is an element of that as well. Certainly for Jarvis - one of the maintenance contractors - they had decided they were withdrawing from track maintenance because of what they call "reputational" risk.

The other private maintenance contractors are scratching their heads too and saying "but for the grace of God there go I - I could be facing those kind of problems as well".

The profits aren't that great from track maintenance, they are already coming down. I don't think you are going to see a huge protest from the private contractors about this.

Has the argument turned full circle from the days when it was thought the private sector can do this much more efficiently and cheaply?

Exactly so. When Railtrack was privatised in the early to mid 1990s, all of that work that used to be done by British rail was contracted out to these private contractors. They were pretty much left to decide for themselves what they did and also, under the contracts they signed, were pretty much free to charge what they like.

All of this began to emerge under the days of Railtrack and once you had gone past Hatfield, that turning point three years ago when it suddenly was revealed just how bad a state the track was in, how poorly it was being maintained right across the country, whole new questions were asked. Now we've reached a stage where everything has gone full circle.

Where does it leave the workers who have been doing the work?

There are some 18,000 workers who currently carry out rail maintenance for these private contractors. All of them are set to be transferred to Network Rail by next summer.

Where does this leave the companies who are going to lose their contracts?

The private contractors have by no means lost everything they do on the railways. They will continue to maintain the heavy end of what they do, the track renewal, when a line is closed and whole sections of track are put in.

That work will stay absolutely with the private contractors. There is no intention to bring that back in house. Instead, this is very much about the day-to-day job of going out and tightening the nuts and bolts on the points and rails.

What do Network Rail have to say?

They have made absolutely no comment. There will be a formal announcement on Friday morning.