ON AND OFF THE RAILS
Page 7
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IIFirst you say you do, and then you don't. Then you say you will and then you won't. You're undecided now so what're you going to do?" The words of the popular song sum up perfectly the fiasco over the "sale" of Freightliner.
After declaring its intention to turn its container carrier over to the private sector, BR has announced yet another delay in the planned selkoff; the earliest it will take place is the second half of this year. Not that it will worry road hauliers: the more uncertainty there is about Freightliner, the more its customers will be tempted to send their containers by road, and to hell with the environmental impact. And the longer the delay the more chance there is that they'll stay there. It also blows a great hole in the DOT's plans to woo freight from the roads. Nobody in their right mind is going to enter into a long-term contract with Freightliner if they don't know who they'll be dealing with in 12 months' time.
Then there's the uncertainty the delay causes to Freightliner's own staff. Senior managers must motivate their people without knowing what's likely to become of them.
But what's the hurry? After all, why rush to sell off a division of BR that has consistently lost tax payers money—£38m during 1992/3. The answer lies in political expediency. If Freightliner is privatised before a not-so-far-away general election, then even if the Tories lose, Labour has said it will not attempt to renationalise it. But if the sale hasn't gone through by then, Labour will shunt rail privatisation firmly into a siding and try to develop Freightliner in the public sector. It's hard to see why they think they could be any better at running it than a private company—especially one which already has plenty of experience in container transport as the three groups currently bidding for it clearly have. What it all boils down to is this: while the DOT might make grandiose statements about taking freight off the back of lorries it's simply not in a posi tion to turn that rhetoric into reality. If BR really wants to help put freight back on the rails it ought to sell Freightliner to a consortium of the nation's top road hauliers such as TNT, Eddie Stobbart and Tibbett & Britten. At least they know how to get things moving.