I don't think people are saying this - it's more understanding the why. Engineering overruns are both very disruptive to the customer and expensive to NR.
I disagree. This isn't the why. The why is an ingrained culture that it doesn't matter. Cost and time are simply excuses being used to defend that culture.
Exactly, it will be mindset rather than a commercial choice. Most days I go past a walking route to a Network Rail depot's portakabins. Alongside the walking route is a discarded angle grinder disc, it's been there for at least 6 years. It will have been walked past thousands of times. It's not still there because of cost, but because it doesn't matter and I've not been told to pick it up.
But there should be incentive. Under the AMP process, the site shouldn’t be handed back to the MDU until they are happy with the work. This includes removing all scrap material.
Every finance and treasury employee manager and decision maker should be required to submit a monthly example of where they have put “a stitch in time saves nine” into practice in that period. Not serious (or am I?)
NR Scotland don’t accept handback if there’s scrap anywhere. A representative will walk the job with the contractors and will provide a list of things they’re unhappy with that need rectified before releasing the money.
Can only comment on my own experiences. Some of the reps are exceptionally fussy before accepting a site back which includes removing scrap which as you say could have been there for 12 years.
What do you mean that NR point at the MDUs and the MDUs point at NR. They're the same thing.
That's an absolutely valid observation. Unfortunately it isn't the practice internally - I think it should be
It’s not a matter of opinion. It’s a matter of compliance with NR standards. The site should not be handed back to the MDU with scrap on site. That’s a snag and should prevent the engineering handback. (This is a different thing to handing back the line to the trains). Lots of regions are clamping down on this because it was historically lacklustre in compliance.
The responsibility falls on the contractor completing the work which required the ballast bags.
Absolutely, of having proper standards and ensuring they're adhered to.
What I mean is one function delegates too much autonomy to a subordinate and the subordinate interprets their role as somewhat different to what the management expect. It happens in all large operations where there are multiple entities working semi independently and with insufficient control or authority from above. I can't believe that Network Rail executives are happy to see waste material accumulating at trackside for years and years but the MDUs might see things differently and argue that their budgets do not include provision to recover unused or displaced material after the job and take it all back to appropriate depots. And as we know, money is always short. It is a shame we lost the Strategic Rail Authority twenty years ago, but that's why I pointed at the ORR as the only remaining function that could possibly influence the situation.
I can't believe it would cross the mind of a Network Rail executive. It happens because that's what the railway does, as a long ingrained practice. Which I'd argue long predates privatisation and the SRA as it looked just the same when I was a kid. The same would happen on the road network if it was the same "that's just what happens" attitude there, but it isn't.
Oh, local authorities will be (are, from first hand experience) infinitely worse than NR at enforcing any standards. Generally all that happens is a utility applies for a permit, gets it, and that's it. I don't believe most local authorities are competent enough (someone kinder than me would say or don't have enough resources) to manage road repairs, and wonder if should just be taken off them and "undevolved" to national agencies like the motorways and railways! My, this has gone a bit circular
There was a clear disposal policy and the offending piece of rail had been moved to a Road-Rail Access Point (RRAP) with the intention of it being taken away (by road). It was the ‘implementation’ that failed. This gets into ‘humans can make mistakes’.
