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Old February 23rd 05, 03:32 PM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.railway,misc.transport.urban-transit
umpston umpston is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jul 2003
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Default Crossrail Bill and Documents Published


Dave Arquati wrote:
I actually had a brief look today at the bill itself when I should

have
been doing other things, and was interested to note that although the


Railways Act 1993 prohibits public-sector operators from being
franchisees (how did SET get around that?), the Crossrail Bill

(Section
34) states that that does not apply in this case, paving the way
(theoretically) for a public-sector operator run Crossrail services.

Oh, and they can revoke the Heathrow Express Order too.

Of course, not being in any way law-minded, I've probably missed
something important.


Just semantics really. I've not read the Railways Act 1993 but if it
prohibits public-sector bodies from being franchisees this may not
necessarily prevent them from being appointed as an operator in some
other way - outside the franchising process. There may also be
provisions in the Transport Act 2000, which established the Strategic
Rail Authority. Although SET is (temporarily) a public-sector operator
it is not a franchisee. It is directly owned by the SRA (the
franchisor) but there has been no franchise, as such, since Connex
South-East surrendered it.

The privatisation process had built in safeguards to allow the
government to continue services where the franchisee had failed, as in
this case. But in 1993 the government did not want to allow councils,
just for example, to bid for franchises in competition with the private
sector - otherwise Ken would be doing it now!