Rail Regulator issues judgment in Network Rail -v- GNER appeal

22 June 2004
ORR/22/04

The Rail Regulator has today published his judgment in the appeal by Network Rail Infrastructure Limited (formerly called Railtrack PLC) against certain aspects of a decision (No. NV33) of the Network and Vehicle Change Sub-Committee of the Access Dispute Resolution Committee, and a cross-appeal by Great North Eastern Railway Limited against other aspects of that decision.

The appeal by Network Rail Infrastructure Limited against certain aspects of the decision of the tribunal below has been refused and GNER’s cross-appeal has been allowed.

The proceedings arose out of a derailment on 17 October 2000, when a GNER train derailed at Welham curve near Hatfield, resulting in the loss of four lives and many other injuries.  In the period immediately following the derailment, Railtrack imposed hundreds of emergency speed restrictions on the network, resulting in considerable disruption to passenger and freight train services.  Train operators sustained economic losses as a result.

The principal question in the appeal concerned alleged deterioration in the condition of Network Rail’s network and whether such deterioration, if proved, is capable of constituting a “Network Change” within Case (i)(a) of the definition of that term in the network code.  The Regulator has decided that it is.

Notes for editors:

Jurisdiction

1. The Rail Regulator is the appeal body for certain classes of dispute in the railway industry, including in matters of changes which may be made to the network by Network Rail or at the instance of any train operator.  Disputes may raise issues of regulatory policy, or questions of law.  The tribunal of first instance, from which appeals to the Regulator come, is the Network and Vehicle Change Sub-Committee of the Access Dispute Resolution Committee, a railway industry dispute resolution body established at the time of industry restructuring in 1994.
2. From 5 July 2004, the statutory position of Rail Regulator is abolished, and his place is taken by a board of at least five members, to be called the Office of Rail Regulation.  Under paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, the Office of Rail Regulation may establish committees of the regulatory board.  Those committees may include persons who are neither members of nor employed by the Office of Rail Regulation.  Professor Jeffrey Jowell QC is a member of the Office of Rail Regulation.
3. During the passage of the Railways and Transport Safety Bill - now the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 - the Rail Regulator asked the Secretary of State for Transport to introduce provisions which would allow for the establishment of a railways appeal tribunal - after the creation of the Office of Rail Regulation - to handle the legal appeals which presently come to the Rail Regulator under the network code.  The Secretary of State and the Lord Chancellor did not believe such a tribunal was necessary, and no amendment to the Bill was made.

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