Public Accounts Committee PAC report

[Taunton]

And the often-great Barbara Castle (Lab., Blackburn)

It was Barbara Castle who sacked Gerry Fiennes, thus depriving the railway of its most competent manager of the era. Sheer arrogance because there was just one sentence in his book critical of ministry indecision.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It was Barbara Castle who sacked Gerry Fiennes, thus depriving the railway of its most competent manager of the era. Sheer arrogance because there was just one sentence in his book critical of ministry indecision.

-- and insecurity. Politicians tend to be insecure. OTOH, secure people actually welcome CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.

 

[MarkRedon]

It was Barbara Castle who sacked Gerry Fiennes, thus depriving the railway of its most competent manager of the era. Sheer arrogance because there was just one sentence in his book critical of ministry indecision.

I never knew that, thank you for the education. Even the very greatest politicians are flawed, as are we all?

 

[nidave]

Do NR have a policy of rolling upgrades, maintenance and renewal? or do they do everything (as it seems to me) piecemeal? Is this dictated by politicians or is this something internal or inherited from Railtrack/BR?

 

[The Planner]

Maintenance and renewal is the day job which is dealt with by the asset engineers and managers, it gets planned out well in advance, especially the larger jobs, it is an internal process and isn't dictated by external factors, just £££.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

Do NR have a policy of rolling upgrades, maintenance and renewal? or do they do everything (as it seems to me) piecemeal? Is this dictated by politicians or is this something internal or inherited from Railtrack/BR?

It's slowly moving to a 'schedule driven maintenance regime' from the 'demand driven maintenance regime' but given BR rushed a whole load of repairs just before privatisation with little thought for future maintenance (the WCML had no TSRs on the day it was handed over to Railtrack) and then Railtrack spent their entire existence running around in a panic botching repairs and trying to figure out what BR did and why before the whole gauge corner cracking disaster at Hatfield, it's not a massive surprise that Network Rail are still trying to work out what's gone on and why.

Network Rail also have the added trouble of having identified lots of BR-era and some Railtrack-era components - from switches and track components through to level crossing warning lights which are unreliable, dangerous or degrade and fail to meet legal requirements.

The Severn Tunnel is finally moving to a scheduled maintenance regime, so it'll be blitzed once per Control Period - new track and a visit from a ballast cleaner once per 5 years, new sleepers and complete re-ballast every 20 years, which is why it's getting new ballast, sleepers and rail at the moment. All being well, it won't need any major work until 2020.

 

[coppercapped]

It was Barbara Castle who sacked Gerry Fiennes, thus depriving the railway of its most competent manager of the era. Sheer arrogance because there was just one sentence in his book critical of ministry indecision.

Actually it was Stanley Raymond, the then Chairman of the British Railways Board, who sacked Gerry Fiennes shortly after his book I Tried To Run A Railway was published.

Raymond crossed swords with Barbara Castle who, a few weeks after Fiennes left, then terminated Raymond's employment. She wanted to replace him with Peter Parker but he turned the job down and instead it went to Henry Johnson, the previous General Manager of the London Midland Region.