On 24 Dec, 09:48, Chris wrote:

On 24 Dec, 03:16, Mizter T wrote:

I wonder if this is perchance related to the EU ruling that railways
must open up to all operators by 2010? I'm afraid I'm not at all clued
up on the specifics of this whatsoever, but I am curious about what
railways it applies to - BAA's branch line is classed as a 'private
railway' after all (though I suppose one could argue it is public in
the sense that it is served by public passenger trains).

I doubt it - more likely connected with the BAA funding of the line
and the arrangements with Network Rail to maintain it.....BAA Airtrack
from Staines to T5 will purely be Airtrack I understand, for some
years until again, it's opened up for other TOCs to bd to run services
along it. UNtil then, it'll be two from Waterloo & Two from Reading
every hour. Once it gets contracted & built, that is.


Though of course the mere fact that Network Rail might be a
maintenance contractor for the line doesn't mean that the line becomes
part of the 'national rail network' - after all, this is the exact
situation that applies on the CTRL where Network Rail is a maintenance
contractor to LCR (well actually they do more than that as they
essentially run the high-speed line under an operations contract from
LCR), though I don't know anyhing about the maintenance arrangements
on the Heathrow spur.

One interesting thing worth noting is that I understand that British
Rail originally had a 30% share in the Heathrow rail link venture, but
this was sold by the dying British Railways Board to BAA in 1996
during the endgame of railway privatisation [1]. I have read
suggestions that the newly created Railtrack wanted to buy back in to
the rail link, I think the logic being that this would allow them to
offer Heathrow as potential destination to other operators, especially
as and when Airtrack got built (i.e. with its attractive promise of
through services via Heathrow) - it is of course worth bearing in mind
the early and heady optimism that was displayed by Railtrack's
expansion plans. Perhaps someone else can fill in some more
information with regards to these purported proto-plans of Railtrack
from back in days of the mid/late 90's?


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[1] See paragraph 11 on pages 3 and 4 (PDF):
http://www.competition-commission.or..._ferrovial.pdf