| State to take back control of rail |
 RAILCORP will be scrapped and New South Wales train services returned to direct control of the State Government in a move Premier Nathan Rees says will improve services.
Mr Rees will formally announce the move today, saying it comes after RailCorp continually ignored the State Government's commitments to the electorate.
Legislation will go before Parliament when it returns later this month to remove the corporation's commercial board.
RailCorp will return to being a statutory authority under the direct control of the state's transport minister.
Mr Rees said the decision was about taking control of a service which impacted on people daily.
He said the experiment to create RailCorp back in 2004 had not worked.
"Some millions of people travel on our rail system, and since 2004 it's been managed by a board at arm's length from Government," he told ABC Radio.
"And what we're saying is that experiment has failed, that it's been unwieldy."
RailCorp was announced by former transport minister Michael Costa in 2003 as part of an amalgamation of several distinct rail authorities.
Mr Costa, and then newly-appointed chief executive Vince Graham, decided on a market-style corporate model for RailCorp, in a move to carry out essential but not necessarily popular reform.
The changes were enacted in January 2004.
Mr Rees said under the corporate structure, transport ministers were held to public account, but they did not have any day-to-day control over the network.
He cited the recent trackwork carried out on train lines over the long weekend which coincided with the NRL grand final and a major race meeting at Randwick Racecourse.
"That to me is unfathomable and the answers we were getting from RailCorp on that were simply not satisfactory," Mr Rees said.
He said public transport and road congestion was the top issue for Sydneysiders and would be a priority in next month's mini-budget.
News.com.au
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