Railways Act 1993

137 Payments by the Secretary of State in respect of track access charges in connection with railway goods services

(1) The Secretary of State may, for the purpose of securing the provision of adequate services for the carriage of goods by railway, enter into agreements with goods service operators under which he undertakes to make payments to the goods service operator in question in respect of all or any part of the track access charges which may be incurred by the goods service operator in connection with the provision of the services to which the agreement relates.

(2) The Secretary of State shall not enter into an agreement by virtue of subsection (1) above unless he is satisfied that benefits of a social or environmental nature are likely to result from the provision of those services for the carriage of goods by railway to which the agreement relates.

(3) Any sums required by the Secretary of State for making payments under agreements entered into by virtue of this section shall be paid out of money provided by Parliament.

(4) In this section—

• “goods service operator” means a person who operates services for the carriage of goods by railway;

• “track access charge” means any payment required to be made under an access agreement conferring any permission or right to use track;

and expressions used in this section and in Part I above have the same meaning in this section as they have in that Part.