Track renewals contracts specify recovery of all scrap material and that includes all rail offcuts. The rub though is its only over the section of the renewal. Also we would have to pay them extra to get any residual scrap in the cess or the four foot removed if maintenance couldn't do it.In which case why can’t the contract include removing surplus materials and leaving the site tidy, with suitable sanctions if they fail to comply.
They left some in our garden!Not crash barrier, and not a motorway, but on three occasions in the last three years utility contractors have left signage and road closure kit on my road after completing their jobs. The first two times I found a number to call for them to retrieve it. The third time I just took it all to the tip.
I was referring to the handback of the project under PACE. I could have wrote that better to be fair.Preventing engineering handback will obviously delay the entire possession handback live for the operational railway.
Codswallop. They'll remain there until the ballast they're sat on needs to be moved.Those ballast bags are new ballast for use in maintenance. They will have been there for years, but they will get used at some point.
Codswallop. They'll remain there until the ballast they're sat on needs to be moved.
Absolutely, of having proper standards and ensuring they're adhered to.
I still don't accept that it's simply pragmatism led by cost and time considerations. There'll be next to no examples of it elsewhere in the civil engineering world, but it's the accepted status quo in the railway world. I expect it has been for decades, so I'm not saying this with any rose tinted specs.
When was the last time anyone saw discarded bits of crash barrier on a motorway verge after roadworks because it was quicker / cheaper than removing them? Motorway closures are also timed and overruns cause trouble - the railway is in no way unique on this.
Somewhere along the line, the railways seem to have lost the ethos of a tidy work place when it comes to trackside maintenance. I worked in industry and, like thousands of other companies, we worked to the ISO 9001 quality standard. If we had left stuff lying around like you see on the railways, our external auditors would have gone berserk. Of course it takes time and effort to clear up after a job but you have to factor that in when working out costings and timings beforehand.
Surely ISO 9001 is a quality standard that requires an organisation to operate according to its own set and approved procedures. Unless there are defined in-house standards about the stowage of materials lineside, there isn't any case to answer - providing the practice doesn't represent a safety hazard.Somewhere along the line, the railways seem to have lost the ethos of a tidy work place when it comes to trackside maintenance. I worked in industry and, like thousands of other companies, we worked to the ISO 9001 quality standard. If we had left stuff lying around like you see on the railways, our external auditors would have gone berserk. Of course it takes time and effort to clear up after a job but you have to factor that in when working out costings and timings beforehand.