'National Dispute' at Network Rail regarding maintenance

[Starmill]

Currently it appears nowhere near that bad, otherwise the likes of HS2 would’ve already been paused, pending yet another review.

HS2 Phase 2b Western Leg is clearly at risk, and Crossrail 2 and the Bakerloo line extension are also on hold, among other enhancements. It will be 10 years before we see the benefits of HS2 too, so there may yet be a significant long term decline.

 

[Dr Hoo]

The 'green recovery' was, put simply, a lie designed to fob off the critics at the time and utterly typical of Johnson's short-term populist approach to everything. Meanwhile road spending continues to rise because that's the Tory way - keep the road lobby happy. The railways are entering a very dark time indeed.

Noting that the Oxford-Cambridge 'Expressway' scheme seems to have been paused recently can you flesh out this increase in road spending please (beyond the obvious need to spend more on things like pothole repair and landslips after a rather harsher winter than last year)?

 

[Bald Rick]

HS2 Phase 2b Western Leg is clearly at risk

You surely meant the Eastern leg?

 

[Starmill]

You surely meant the Eastern leg?

Whops! Sorry yes. The 2b Western leg is probably the only part of the so-called Integrated Rail Plan that's predictable.

 

[Leicester_Loya]

Thank you - my nephew, a former NR apprentice has heard nothing concrete. He never says much about his job but it is some sort of maintenance training role based in Milton Keynes although he hardly ever goes there even before Covid. He (and his wife) are very very worried.

As a former NR apprentice who has not long finished the apprenticeship scheme, I understand his worries. I'm just about to take out a mortgage, so we're probably in a similar boat.

What can he actually do about it though? Not a lot, same as me. Ensure he keeps taking any courses offered, put some money aside in case he does lose his job and don't go wreckless on the spending. It'll all depend on his area, his roster, his role etc. It'll be different for everyone, although some may be more at risk than others.

I think 95% of faulting and maintenance S&T teams will be fine, I'm now not worrying, just being sensible and plodding along.

 

[Annetts key]

As a former NR apprentice who has not long finished the apprenticeship scheme, I understand his worries. I'm just about to take out a mortgage, so we're probably in a similar boat.

What can he actually do about it though? Not a lot, same as me. Ensure he keeps taking any courses offered, put some money aside in case he does lose his job and don't go wreckless on the spending. It'll all depend on his area, his roster, his role etc. It'll be different for everyone, although some may be more at risk than others.

I think 95% of faulting and maintenance S&T teams will be fine, I'm now not worrying, just being sensible and plodding along.

It’s very sensible to put some money into savings if you can. In any event, make sure that you have enough savings to cope with an emergency. Say three months wages.

If you have a mortgage, and already have a suitable emergency fund, then if the interest rates on savings are lower than the interest rate on your mortgage, generally, if possible, it’s better to pay a larger amount to your mortgage provider, so that you pay off your loan sooner (but do check with your mortgage provider first). As then you pay less interest overall. That’s also a good reason to work some overtime if you can get it, to help pay off your mortgage.

If you don’t currently have a mortgage, then you have a choice. Wait and see what happens, but with the risk that it may not be possible to get a suitable mortgage later. Or get a mortgage now, and maybe have to deal with the consequences if you are made redundant later. That’s a personal choice.

No one really knows what the future holds in terms of individual jobs. The government, the Treasury and the railway companies are scarced stiff that the nice little earners otherwise known as commuters that pay thousands of pounds for their season tickets are not going to be returning. But we just don’t know what’s going to happen.

They are also concerned that passenger numbers in general will take years to recover back to pre-pandemic levels.

Hence Network Rail are looking to see how and where they can reduce spending. I suspect it will be similar with the train operating companies (TOCs).

At the RMT meeting, we discovered that Network Rail don’t currently have any proposals (written or otherwise) that they are ready to discuss with the unions or to put to the unions.

Just today, it was announced that the railways will be going back to a near normal timetable. Because the government wants to encourage people back onto public transport.

So until the powers that be see which way it’s going, they may well be careful about what they want to save money on.

But equally, the existing move to having technology do the monitoring, and the reduced scheduled maintenance frequencies of routine planned three monthly, six monthly and annual maintenance will continue.

And as they continue to move to more night and weekend working, and continue to move away from unassisted lookout / red zone working, this will mean that Network Rail will want changes.

Unfortunately that’s about all I can tell you at the moment.

 

[Leicester_Loya]

It’s very sensible to put some money into savings if you can. In any event, make sure that you have enough savings to cope with an emergency. Say three months wages.

If you have a mortgage, and already have a suitable emergency fund, then if the interest rates on savings are lower than the interest rate on your mortgage, generally, if possible, it’s better to pay a larger amount to your mortgage provider, so that you pay off your loan sooner (but do check with your mortgage provider first). As then you pay less interest overall. That’s also a good reason to work some overtime if you can get it, to help pay off your mortgage.

If you don’t currently have a mortgage, then you have a choice. Wait and see what happens, but with the risk that it may not be possible to get a suitable mortgage later. Or get a mortgage now, and maybe have to deal with the consequences if you are made redundant later. That’s a personal choice.

No one really knows what the future holds in terms of individual jobs. The government, the Treasury and the railway companies are scarced stiff that the nice little earners otherwise known as commuters that pay thousands of pounds for their season tickets are not going to be returning. But we just don’t know what’s going to happen.

They are also concerned that passenger numbers in general will take years to recover back to pre-pandemic levels.

Hence Network Rail are looking to see how and where they can reduce spending. I suspect it will be similar with the train operating companies (TOCs).

At the RMT meeting, we discovered that Network Rail don’t currently have any proposals (written or otherwise) that they are ready to discuss with the unions or to put to the unions.

Just today, it was announced that the railways will be going back to a near normal timetable. Because the government wants to encourage people back onto public transport.

So until the powers that be see which way it’s going, they may well be careful about what they want to save money on.

But equally, the existing move to having technology do the monitoring, and the reduced scheduled maintenance frequencies of routine planned three monthly, six monthly and annual maintenance will continue.

And as they continue to move to more night and weekend working, and continue to move away from unassisted lookout / red zone working, this will mean that Network Rail will want changes.

Unfortunately that’s about all I can tell you at the moment.

Excellent post thank you. I will definitely be taking out the mortgage, can't be living at home forever!

A lot will vary where you're from and how you work IMO. At the minute, my depot is understaffed, whilst already doing 3 weeks of nights every 6 weeks, as well as faulting & maintenance on almost every shift bar 5 (in a 6 week roster). Cutting back on the maintenance schedules is fine, but they'll still need boots on the ground ready to go if a fault comes in, and we probably have on average at least 1 fault every 24 hours. We've also been doing no lookout/red zone working for almost 18 months now, I believe we were the first or one of the first to adopt it and stick to it.

Other lads I did my apprenticeship with, they have 10 teams in a depot, but only 6 are faulting, the other 4 do maintenance, so they can probably cut a team or two out, and change everyone to faulting and maintenance, without losing productivity.

I think we'll see some progress with the CAPEX (Works Delivery) re-org in the next 6 weeks or so, so we might have more of an idea soon.

It's certainly nerve racking times, but I don't believe there's many industries out there at the minute where people aren't nervous about the future. I love my job and long may it continue.