Recent content by Clarence Yard

Looks like it has slipped to the autumn.

I think the toilet issue is now well in the past - you don’t need to bring your own Elsan!

No chance. October next year is the target date for getting GBR going properly, after being legally set up a few months before, probably March/April. “Access Day”, when the new access and timetable planning arrangements are to be introduced, is currently scheduled for December 2027.

This is turning into a Monty Python sketch. I have been involved in recovering wheeled equipment from the tracks at KX, in the good old days when H&S never came into it. The odd station barrow, the odd brute, a few self help luggage trolleys (usually thrown over deliberately) no problem in...

The ORR are not at all close to NR but they don’t have their own operational people now so they rely on NR too much. This has been a real bone of contention with applicants because NR (sometimes deliberately) take ages to reply and the ORR are now engaging consultants to help them catch up. The...

At a major station there are usually watering points along the platform edge which you can lift up and then connect to the train. Years ago, they tended to be situated between the platforms (except for 3rd rail stations or platforms) but that isn’t allowed now.

Lumo use Ferme Park because there is space there and they need to fuel and water there. However, Ferme Park feeds BN and there isn’t the time to go through Waterworks Washer, use the CET pad at the north end and return via the Bowes Park reverser and the Harringay flyover to wait to then go back...

The maintenance staff haven’t been TOC employees for some considerable time now (they went Alstom decades ago) so they are not really relevant to the current staffing situation. The TOC will be working to the annual DfT business plan for that TOC which will detail the staff numbers and...

They have but they don’t have control of the track - that is still with NR, despite the Scottish Government funding it. They want to own the track but, so far, Westminster hasn’t wanted to relinquish control.

No, the competition law element effectively went away when all franchised TOCs fell into Government control in 2020. For the purposes of the Competition Act, all those TOCs, NR and the DfT are now in the same competitive “entity”. The lawyering comes about from the various companies doing...

There would be a list of locally approved or known contractors that the CCE could request a quote from. The other possibility is that the CCE would tell the DCE to do the work himself with his own labour force, especially if the job was to be a quick and relatively straight forward one.

No, it’s cultural. We are more used to things going wrong!

It’s the very rigid way they “prior” book in maintenance and repairs. The headroom for dealing with repairs arising that day/night seems to be less than most TOCs would tolerate. Work arisings can have to wait for a future “slot”, more so than I have previously experienced in my days on depots...

It was a political move as we were trying to do trade deals with Eastern Bloc countries.

The first is the obvious one and will yield immediate results. Two units each night and one on repairs is what I would be aiming for. From the experience of the GWR IET introduction, 5 will be very hard because the Scots may repeat their demand to take over NR Scotland entirely and have a...