Railtrack announces first board members

RAILTRACK, which will take over responsibility for the rail infrastructure from British Rail next April, has announced its first five board members, none of whom have experience of working on the railways, writes Christian Wolmar.

In a speech last night, Bob Horton, the chairman of Railtrack, announced that the early appointments included Beverley Anderson, a broadcaster and member of the BBC board of governors; Sir Christopher Foster, a director of Coopers and Lybrand and an architect of the rail privatisation scheme; Dr Derek Roberts, the provost of University College, London, the first industrialist to hold such an academic post; Jenny Page, chief executive of English Heritage; and Christopher Jonas, the past president of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Another name, Archie Norman, the chairman and chief executive of the shops group Asda, was announced but later withdrawn by Railtrack.

Mr Horton, in his inaugural speech as chairman, said that access charges, the price that train operators will have to pay to use the lines, would be made known in the new year. They would be based on the costs caused by operators' use of the track, but there would be extra payments during peak hours. This is likely to result in an increase in fares for commuters.

On Radio 4 earlier, Mr Horton had warned that there were bound to be redundancies 'if inefficiencies are to be driven out'.