Network Rail upgrade delayed by government (BBC News Article)

[6Gman]

We mustn't forget though the truly dreary state of the railways post-privatization. There was an enormous backlog of basic infrastructure work, a fact sadly made manifest in the accidents at Ladbroke Grove, Potter's Bar and Hatfield.

Ladbroke Grove was driver error.

Potters Bar is still unexplained.

Hatfield was down to poor management of the asset.

Not sure any of these were due to "an enormous backlog of basic infrastructure work".

 

[The Planner]

Not only delivering capacity increases, but also being achievable within the planned budgets and timescales by a supply chain that is still largely unfamiliar with it. Arguably a bigger risk than OLE, and I suspect Mark Carne's "digital railway" bringing ERTMS forward will now go very quiet indeed.

Level 2 doesnt really get you anything capacity wise, bits and bobs but nothing groundshaking. Also judging by the amount of jobs on the internal vacancy list on digital railway it aint going anywhere.

 

[Peter Sarf]

My biggest fear is that this all leads to a government distrust of the railways. This will lead to yet another pause in what I hoped would be a rolling programme of electrification. The result will be history repeating itself. No lessons learnt.

As for driver error at Ladbroke Grove iirc there were issues being raised about signal sighting once the electrification masts etc had been installed ?.

I do fear signalling is going to cause the next red face. This is possibly not to do with ERTMS but just plain and simple lack of people who can do the signalling work.

 

[CockneySparrow]

How exactly would that help? The delays and cost overruns NR faces are all to do with upgrading the existing railway, with all the complexities of dealing with ancient Victorian infrastructure and having to work around the huge restrictions of an operational railway. These delays sound the death knell to the argument 'why can't we just upgrade the existing railway?'. Cancelling HS2 would mean more upgrade work would need to be undertaken on the existing network, making the problem worse, not better.

Not really, as HS2 target customers will be rich businessmen going from London to Birmingham non stop, you will still have the people who want to travel in between a less town and the city
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Ladbroke Grove was driver error.

Potters Bar is still unexplained.

Hatfield was down to poor management of the asset.

Not sure any of these were due to "an enormous backlog of basic infrastructure work".

Didn't the bolts come loose from the track at Potters Bar

 

[Mojo]

Ladbroke Grove was driver error.

Potters Bar is still unexplained.

Hatfield was down to poor management of the asset.

Not sure any of these were due to "an enormous backlog of basic infrastructure work".

...and TPWS was due to political interference. Many within the industry bemoan the millions that were spent on the installation of TPWS, which was almost entirely due to political reasons, and these years on there is still much debate over whether it was money well spent, and the right system for the job.

 

[cjmillsnun]

Ladbroke Grove was driver error.

Potters Bar is still unexplained.

Hatfield was down to poor management of the asset.

Not sure any of these were due to "an enormous backlog of basic infrastructure work".

Ladbroke Grove was down to driver error, however a major factor in the accident was the incompetence of Railtrack, in not convening a signal sighting committee on SN109, despite multiple SPADs at that signal, and letters from a TOC advising of poor visibility of that signal.

Potters Bar was more than likely down to poor maintenance. When nuts for a stretcher bar are lying on the trackbed, something is wrong.

Hatfield was down to poor maintenance again, and yes there was an enormous backlog of basic infrastructure work identified because of Hatfield. Just think of all those 20 MPH TSRs that occurred after Hatfield and how the network ground to a halt.

Bear in mind that the first of those accidents mentioned was a full 5 years after Railtrack was hived off from BR, and it seems that Railtrack had enough time to start getting on top of maintenance. However the amount that was allocated for renewals was a tiny fraction what would be required for any railway. It was less than BR spent on renewals.
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...and TPWS was due to political interference. Many within the industry bemoan the millions that were spent on the installation of TPWS, which was almost entirely due to political reasons, and these years on there is still much debate over whether it was money well spent, and the right system for the job.

To be fair to TPWS, whilst it wasn't the best system available, it works.

 

[MarkyT]

...and TPWS was due to political interference. Many within the industry bemoan the millions that were spent on the installation of TPWS, which was almost entirely due to political reasons, and these years on there is still much debate over whether it was money well spent, and the right system for the job.

The lack of any major collision incidents and consequent fatalities in recent years at a time when traffic has become denser and trains more crowded can be put down largely to the presence of TPWS. UK was decidedly behind the times by European comparisons in not having any form of simple overspeed and trainstop system, present in Germany since before WWII (Indusi) and from the 1980s in France (KVB). Whether TPWS was the right technical solution is another matter, but the system in use today was already under development before Ladbroke Grove, and whilst the national project was massive in scale, the solution was technically very simple for each site on the infrastructure and also for rolling stock fitment, on new trains as well as old. ATP pilot schemes of the early 1990s might have set a different standard, but the systems were several times the price of TPWS and were complex and time consuming to engineer for the trackside and the onboard systems were very difficult to fit to older traction. The various proprietary solutions were also already fast becoming eclipsed by the promise of a future ETCS standard for the track to train interface. Given the realities of the time, TPWS was the only realistic solution and the right solution. I believe it has saved a great many lives and injuries.

 

[Crundles]

Ladbroke Grove was down to driver error, however a major factor in the accident was the incompetence of Railtrack, in not convening a signal sighting committee on SN109, despite multiple SPADs at that signal, and letters from a TOC advising of poor visibility of that signal.

Potters Bar was more than likely down to poor maintenance. When nuts for a stretcher bar are lying on the trackbed, something is wrong.

Hatfield was down to poor maintenance again, and yes there was an enormous backlog of basic infrastructure work identified because of Hatfield. Just think of all those 20 MPH TSRs that occurred after Hatfield and how the network ground to a halt.

Bear in mind that the first of those accidents mentioned was a full 5 years after Railtrack was hived off from BR, and it seems that Railtrack had enough time to start getting on top of maintenance. However the amount that was allocated for renewals was a tiny fraction what would be required for any railway. It was less than BR spent on renewals.
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To be fair to TPWS, whilst it wasn't the best system available, it works.

This. Quite extraordinary how short some peoples' memories are.

 

[edwin_m]

Ladbroke Grove was down to driver error, however a major factor in the accident was the incompetence of Railtrack, in not convening a signal sighting committee on SN109, despite multiple SPADs at that signal, and letters from a TOC advising of poor visibility of that signal.

To be fair to TPWS, whilst it wasn't the best system available, it works.

TPWS would also have prevented Ladbroke Grove, had it been installed at SN109 and on the Thames Turbo unit involved.

Hatfield was down to poor maintenance again, and yes there was an enormous backlog of basic infrastructure work identified because of Hatfield. Just think of all those 20 MPH TSRs that occurred after Hatfield and how the network ground to a halt.

As I understand it no defects anywhere near as bad as Hatfield were found anywhere else. The 20mph restrictions were down to Railtrack becoming over-cautious. Either they didn't have enough information on the state of their assets, or their senior people could neither interpret that data, nor trust the advice of less senior people who did understand the issue.

 

[Class 170101]

ATP in operation on FGW trains I understand is mandatory where it is fitted on ATP Lines.

 

[QueensCurve]

Ladbroke Grove was driver error.

Not quite that simple.

Signal SN109 had been passed at danger more often than any other signal on the network and nobody had asked why the "driver error" happened at that signal so much more than any other. Even a "dress rehearsal" for the Ladbroke Grove collision didn't prompt any action.

Human factors potentially included the visibility of the signal when the sun was low in the sky, the plethora of routes set by ARS and the peculiar inverted "L" shape of the signal.

Also there was no flank protection to prevent the SPAD train failing the other line.
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Potters Bar is still unexplained.

True, but there was improper management of the infrastructure which would otherwise have prevented or recognised the dangerous condition of the facing point.
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Hatfield was down to poor management of the asset.

My understanding is that the gauge corner cracking had been observed by the maintenance contractor in May but Railtrack had taken no action, despite repeated warnings, until October when a piece of rail over 100m long shattered to smitherines underneath the passing trains.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

As I understand it no defects anywhere near as bad as Hatfield were found anywhere else. The 20mph restrictions were down to Railtrack becoming over-cautious. Either they didn't have enough information on the state of their assets, or their senior people could neither interpret that data, nor trust the advice of less senior people who did understand the issue.

I recall reading that the then Chief Operating Officer, who imposed the restrictions, had no railway experience prior to joining Railtrack.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I recall reading that the then Chief Operating Officer, who imposed the restrictions, had no railway experience prior to joining Railtrack.

That was Johnson Cox, previously of Yorkshire Water.
He later ran Anglian Water and UK Coal.

 

[HH]

That was Johnson Cox, previously of Yorkshire Water.
He later ran Anglian Water and UK Coal.

Wasn't it Sooty (as he was known to his hordes of fans and admirers)?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Wasn't it Sooty (as he was known to his hordes of fans and admirers)?

Gerald Corbett was Chairman and the main public face of Railtrack.
Johnson Cox was hired as Chief Operating Officer and made the decision after Hatfield to "export the risk" by imposing 20mph speed limits for weeks on the major routes.
He was 9 months with Railtrack before being shown the door, before they imploded completely.
Actually I think he was in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time.
The problem was deeper than one man.

 

[HH]

Gerald Corbett was Chairman and the main public face of Railtrack.
Johnson Cox was hired as Chief Operating Officer and made the decision after Hatfield to "export the risk" by imposing 20mph speed limits for weeks on the major routes.
He was 9 months with Railtrack before being shown the door, before they imploded completely.
Actually I think he was in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time.
The problem was deeper than one man.

Well it was certainly a case of the blind leading the blind at the top...

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Indeed; bringing in external people is not wrong per se ( an outsider will often spot an inefficiency that is so obvious that the time served insiders have completely missed it ); what is wrong is putting external people with no relevant experience in positions where they would need to have such experience in order to make properly judged decisions.

We must remember that at the time there had been a wholesale clear-out of people with the right experience; there was hardly anyone around to properly advise the new people. It was a case of too much external influx in too short a time.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Generally in any industry the people who will make better managers will be people who have done the jobs of the workers that they'll be managing

 

[Peter Sarf]

Generally in any industry the people who will make better managers will be people who have done the jobs of the workers that they'll be managing

That philosophy is not subscribed to in the UK.

Unfortunately.

 

[Taunton]

The lack of any major collision incidents and consequent fatalities in recent years at a time when traffic has become denser and trains more crowded can be put down largely to the presence of TPWS. UK was decidedly behind the times by European comparisons in not having any form of simple overspeed and trainstop system, present in Germany since before WWII (Indusi) and from the 1980s in France (KVB). Whether TPWS was the right technical solution is another matter, but the system in use today was already under development before Ladbroke Grove, and whilst the national project was massive in scale, the solution was technically very simple for each site on the infrastructure and also for rolling stock fitment, on new trains as well as old.

A long history of this. The old GWR had their "ATC" at distant signals from about 1908, starting with Paddington-Reading on all lines, then rolled out across the company, and were pretty free of accidents running through signals. In the 1950s, where there were a series of major accidents on other BR Regions, it was apparent that a big "Not Invented Here" attitude to it was still around. It finally was replaced by AWS in the 1970s.

There was an equivalent attitude to a later Southern Region development of AWS, termed "Signal-Repeating AWS" (SRAWS), which looked like a notable advance but was squelched by upper management from non-SR backgrounds.

 

[Robertj21a]

Generally in any industry the people who will make better managers will be people who have done the jobs of the workers that they'll be managing

I appreciate that you use the word 'Generally', and I agree with you. My only concern is those people who have been appointed as managers largely because they were the best at the job they were doing. Unfortunately, being the best at anything doesn't mean that you are also going to be good as a manager.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

People like Rolls Royce came unstuck by relying on expert techies to run the firm, without enough business skills.
There have to be enough business types and technical staff to make an engineering company work.
Railtrack had too few technical people in charge, Rolls had too many.

With Network Rail's problems, nobody has asked why NR under David Higgins was so well regarded, but has gone down the drain under Mark Carne.
Although Mark Carne has copped the fallout, it is all actually David Higgins' fault (now in charge of HS2)?
The business world is full of folk who move on just before the roof falls in.

 

[transmanche]

Generally in any industry the people who will make better managers will be people who have done the jobs of the workers that they'll be managing

I appreciate that you use the word 'Generally', and I agree with you. My only concern is those people who have been appointed as managers largely because they were the best at the job they were doing. Unfortunately, being the best at anything doesn't mean that you are also going to be good as a manager.

^ This.

I note that there's one large employer which employs 'managers' who, almost invariably, have never done the jobs of the 'workers' they manage. The armed forces.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The Independent has an article on Network Rail being required to sell off property interests.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-for-1bn-sale-of-its-properties-10346784.html

Apart from the non-operational assets, it touches on things like telecommunications and power supplies, which is coming pretty close to its core network.

Exasperated officials and ministers at the Department for Transport and Treasury are keen on Network Rail refocusing on its core engineering work. They have been devising plans to let the private sector manage or take over aspects of its existing work, including telecommunications, like passenger wi-fi, and the power supply to the network, such as overhead cables.

With Rothschild’s appointment, bankers will look at a number of options for how, as an industry source put it, Network Rail can “maximise value” from its commercial property – probably in the form of a number of sales. The bank was quietly appointed around three weeks ago.

The vultures appear to be circling.

 

[QueensCurve]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33270586

Today's Grauniad reports on the new Network Rail Chairman. Worryingly it states:-

The electrification of two major lines through the Midlands and across the Pennines has been shelved. More projects are likely to follow.

Emphasis mine.

 

[HH]

The business world is full of folk who move on just before the roof falls in.

Only too true. And then there's the corollary - where a company is in trouble, the new guy comes in and writes off a bunch a provides for aliens eating your banknotes, blaming it all on his predecessor. Then the next year, those write offs and provisions quietly get reversed and, lo and behold, he's making a nice profit. I'd bet my house that's just what happened at Serco...

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Only too true. And then there's the corollary - where a company is in trouble, the new guy comes in and writes off a bunch a provides for aliens eating your banknotes, blaming it all on his predecessor. Then the next year, those write offs and provisions quietly get reversed and, lo and behold, he's making a nice profit. I'd bet my house that's just what happened at Serco...

The trouble with blaming your predecessor for agreeing an impossible budget, in this case, is that David Higgins is the person who has hung his hat on "no more than £50 billion" for HS2...

 

[lincolnshire]

When David Higgins took over at Network Rail he had a very much reduced salary to the guy before him, so did he already know it was going to be a stop gap before the H.S.2 job was going to be offered to him in a couple of years time on a higher salary?

 

[Mojo]

I appreciate that you use the word 'Generally', and I agree with you. My only concern is those people who have been appointed as managers largely because they were the best at the job they were doing. Unfortunately, being the best at anything doesn't mean that you are also going to be good as a manager.

The problem in today's railway industry is largely that of money. Given the relatively high salaries paid to more junior members of staff, the difference in pay when going up to first and second line management, when one considers that managers will lose out on a large amount of overtime and fiddles, means that for many of the best staff, it isn't worth it.

 

[lincolnshire]

The problem in today's railway industry is largely that of money. Given the relatively high salaries paid to more junior members of staff, the difference in pay when going up to first and second line management, when one considers that managers will lose out on a large amount of overtime and fiddles, means that for many of the best staff, it isn't worth it.

Definitely agree with the above, have seen that a few times over the years. Some of the glory seekers just love the title of there job as against the salary.

My saying was I will be toilet attendant or words to that effect as long as they pay me at my rate of pay. Fancy titles mean nothing its the money that counts.