Network Rail posts £290m losses

Network Rail, the parent company of the body which runs the rail infrastructure, formerly run by Railtrack, has posted a loss of £290 million in its preliminary results for the year to March 31 – compared with a £295 million profit in the previous year.

The results published reflect the company’s performance in the six months since the administration period following the demise of Railtrack was ended. Network Rail's Chairman, Ian McAllister, said that the results reflected a year of significant change and major progress but "much remains to be done".

The Chairman added: "We are being realistic about the challenges we face. Substantial growth on the network allied to a history of under investment has left us with a fragile network which is expensive to put right. Improving performance and reducing total cost must be our focus but we must also work with our contractors to make up the significant backlog in renewals."

Train delays were up 9% at 14.7 million minutes from 13.4 million as the company set about a huge maintenance drive in the wake of the Potters Bar accident in May 2002 in which seven people were killed.

As a result of the maintenance spend – increased by 33% at £1.2 billion from £0.9 billion repair – Network Rail reported that instances of broken rails had been reduced by 17% to their lowest-ever recorded at 445 (down from 534).

Signals passed at danger were down 7% at 405 from 434 and serious breaches were down 14% – again lowest-ever recorded

Mr McAllister added: "It was a year in which the first steps were taken to address the difficulties of the past. It will take several years, but our goal is to build a rail infrastructure which will demonstrate sustainable improvement in performance at an acceptable cost to the nation."

(GMcG)