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By Sarah Young
LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The British government is planninga major overhaul of the country's much-criticised railways in abid to improve efficiency and stop excuses for poor service likethe wrong kind of snow or leaves causing delays on the line.
In the biggest rail shake-up for 20 years, TransportMinister Chris Grayling said on Tuesday he will give trainoperators a role in managing tracks and infrastructure as well.
Trains and tracks were separated when Britain's railwayswere privatised in 1997 under the Conservative government ofJohn Major but passengers' groups have long claimed the divisionpromotes buck-passing and inefficiency.
"The railways of this country are crucial to its economicfuture," Grayling was due to say according to extracts releasedby his office. "Our railways need to adapt and change in orderto be able to cope with the growth that they have experienced."
Since privatisation, passenger numbers have doubled, leadingto overcrowding and putting more pressure on state-owned NetworkRail, the organisation that maintains tracks and upgradesinfrastructure.
Prime Minister Theresa May's government has made spending on infrastructure like railways a priority to kickstart an economypotentially weakened by Britain's exit from the European Union.
Grayling said he wants rail contracts awarded from 2018 inEngland to have the company operating the services form a jointmanagement team with bosses from Network Rail.
He will also set up East West Rail, a new governmentorganisation aimed at building a new line between Oxford andCambridge that will be run as an integrated project, with thepublic and private sector working closely together.
POWERFUL UNIONS AND AUTUMN LEAVES
Grayling hopes by bringing Network Rail closer to the trainoperators, which include listed companies like Stagecoach and First Group, delays and issues will besolved more quickly, ending the underperformance of Britain'srailways against European peers on some measures.
Weary British commuters have heard endless variations ofeither track-related excuses for delays like the autumn leaffall making rails slippery or train problems like industrialaction by powerful rail unions.
Current disruption due a union dispute on one network,Southern, part of Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), 65 percentowned by Go-Ahead, has attracted so much passenger furythat even Church of England bishops have appealed for aresolution.
Network Rail was set up in 2002 to replace privatisedoperator Railtrack, which had run into financial difficulty andhad been blamed for a series of safety failures that led toseveral fatal crashes.
Grayling said under his plan Britain's tracks would remainin state hands, but the RMT union criticised the plans forbringing more privatisation into the rail network. (Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Stephen Addison and TomHeneghan)