Britain plans to overhaul the way railways are run

LONDON, Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) 6 (Reuters) - Britain is to overhaul the running of its rail network to give service operators a role in managing the tracks their trains use to try to improve reliability, British Transport Minister Chris Grayling said on Tuesday.

Grayling said in rail contracts awarded from 2018 in England he wanted the company operating the services to form a joint management team with bosses from Network Rail, the state-owned giant currently responsible for maintaining Britain's track infrastructure.

"I intend to start bringing back together the operation of track and train on our railways," Grayling told the BBC.

Currently companies such as Stagecoach and Virgin Group which together operate trains on Britain's east coast line between London and Scotland and Network Rail work separately from one another.

Grayling said joint management teams would mean that both sides worked more closely to improve services.

Britain privatised rail services in the 1990s. Since then passenger numbers have doubled, leading to overcrowding and putting more pressure on Network Rail to maintain tracks and upgrade infrastructure.

Network Rail was set up in 2002 to replace privatised operator Railtrack which had run into financial difficulty and had been blamed for a series of safety failures that led to a number of fatal crashes.

Some rail operators, such as Southern, part of Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which is 65 percent owned by Go-Ahead alongside France's Keolis, have been criticised by lawmakers and passengers for providing customers with a terrible, unreliable service on their London commuter lines.

Rail companies say some delays are due to the poor service provided by Network Rail.

"When something goes wrong we need the best possible joined-up approach to sorting out the problem," Grayling told BBC radio. "This is about creating a single, joined-up team made up of members of network rail, members of the train operator."

He said under his plan Britain's tracks would remain in state hands.

The RMT union, whose members are currently involved in a long-running dispute with Southern, said it would fight the plans.

"This is the Tory Government dragging the railways back to the failed and lethal Railtrack model of the private sector running infrastructure," RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said.

"The idea that what Britain's railways need is more privatisation is ludicrous."

(Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Michael Holden)