Dave Worley wrote:Hmmm. Remember something about conflicting ROSCOs preventing changes to lengths of Virgin srvices.
Ignore me - I remember now it was referring to the possible idea of using Pendolino carriages owned from new by another ROSCO being put into Angel's stuff.
Not gonna happen, of course.
The whole argument is because the DFT are refusing to fund the extra carriages when Virgin pay the ROSCO's so much as it is. Angel, who are about to face a Competition Commission review about their charges, quite quickly put a no to paying for the carriages themselves.
For your information about what a ROSCO is, please see the below mock interview on Bremner, Bird and Fortune, a few years ago (or
for the humour-less, there is this link):
Taken from Bremner Bird & Fortune Channel4, 29/02/04.
Interviewer: Sir George Parr, you are a banker.
George Parr: Yes I am, yes.
I: And you're particularly involved with the financing of the railway system.
GP: I think system is a bit strong a word,
I: yes,
GP: erm, but broadly speaking, yes, yes I am.
I: Yes and the railways seem to require really enormous amounts of public subsidy.
GP: Er, yes.
I: Why should the railways, running the railways require such vast amounts of taxpayers' money?
GP: If it were run simply on the receipts you get from selling tickets, then the journey from London to Manchester would cost about five hundred pounds,
I: yes,
GP: as opposed to the eminently reasonable one hundred and fifty we pay now.
I: Yes, and what you're saying is that it will never become commercially profitable.
GP: No, I'm not saying that, no, there is one part of the system which is really quite, ha, extremely profitable.
I: Oh really? What part is that?
GP: It happens to be the area in which my bank is involved.
I: Really, yes, yes, I thought it might be. Well, um, what do you do then?
GP: We own the trains.
I: Well no, surely, surely the trains are owned by the train companies, by Arriva and Virgin and South West Trains and all the others?
GP: No, that's very naiive if I may say so.
I: It might be naiive, but it would be logical, wouldn't it?
GP: What's logic got to do with it? We're talking about the railways!
I: Yes.
GP: You know, when the system was set up, it was decided by the Government there would be a group of companies who operated the trains and another group of companies that, er, that owned them.
I: Why?
GP: Well, why not! And, er, my company's one of three rolling stock leasing companies called ROSCOs,
I: yes,
GP: and we lease our trains to the operating companies.
I: And this is profitable, is it?
GP: It is fairly profitable, yes. I mean, just to give you an example, we've just supplied South West Trains with some new rolling stock.
I: How much do you rent those for?
GP: For, er, five hundred thousand pounds a year.
I: And what do they cost to build?
GP: Just over two million.
I: So, a train operator will pay you a quarter of what they cost to build, every year,
GP: every year, yes,
I: for how many years?
GP: Well, not more than forty.
I: That's a huge profit margin, isn't it?
GP: Well, I hope so. But I have to emphasise most strongly here that my company does not receive one penny of taxpayers' money.
I: No, no. So you're only paid by the train operating companies.
GP: Yes, well, let me explain.
I: Yes.
GP: Take the franchise, South Central. Their subsidy is going to increase by £342 million pounds over the next five years. And inevitably, some of that money will come to us for new rolling stock.
I: Yes, how much? What proportion, ten per cent, twenty per cent?
GP: Eighty per cent.
I: Eighty per cent! And this is taxpayers' money?
GP: No, no, no, no, don't run away with that idea, no. No, it's taxpayers' money when it gets to the operating company, you see,
I: yes,
GP: but by the time it moves from the operating company to our leasing company it's a simple commercial transaction.
I: So what sort of return are you getting on your investment, roughly?
GP: Roughly thirty per cent.
I: Thirty per cent?
GP: Thirty per cent, yes.
I: Well, if you compare that with, well, a company regarded with being very successful, Tesco for example,
GP: yes,
I: Tesco's very happy with five per cent.
GP: Yes, but what you have to remember is that the three leasing companies are all owned by banks.
I: Yes.
GP: And by their very nature, banks make a lot of money.
I: But since so much of your revenue actually just comes, you know, from, from the taxpayer, isn't it odd that the Rail Regulator doesn't have anything to say about this?
GP: No it isn't odd, no, because the leasing companies are in fact the only part of the system which is not under the jurisdiction of the Rail Regulator.
I: Really? That's, that's handy, isn't it?
GP: It is very, very handy. It is.
I: This whole arrangement whereby you make these colossal profits from leasing out these trains, I mean, doesn't really make sense.
GP: Well, you see, what you have to remember is that our returns are quite large, but then we're taking a huge risk.
I: What risk?
GP: What risk?
I: What risk, yes.
GP: Well, I mean, because when the franchises were set up, the Government wanted them to be very short, just five, six, seven years,
I: yes,
GP: but as we've discovered in this conversation, trains can rumble along for twenty five to forty years,
I: forty years, yes.
GP: Now, if at the end of a franchise it's not renewed, then we're left holding hundreds and hundreds of trains with nothing to do.
I: No, no you aren't, because they just give the franchise to somebody else and you rent the trains to them.
GP: Not necessarily. It might happen that way.
I: No, the only risk you're taking is that if one day the Government suddenly decides for some reason to, to completely tear up the whole railway system - and close it down - overnight.
GP: Well it could do that. It could do that...
I: But they aren't going to do that, are they?
GP: No, no, they might. I mean, look at it from the Government's point of view, if they close down the whole thing there wouldn't be any more complains about punctuality, you wouldn't have these awful accidents on the railways, and the Government would save billions and billions of pounds.
I: Yes, so you want to make as much money as you can while there is still a railway?
GP: Well, wouldn't you?
I: Yes. Sir George Parr, thank you very much.
GP: Thank you very much indeed.
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Says it all, doesn't it?