Until the recent cull started, senior managers at Network Rail were closely allied to Bliar and used his style of hype and spin.
Nothing therefore is too far fetched for NR to claim as "theirs", even to the extent of claiming the credit for innovations introduced by Contractors and subsequently quietly withdrawn/stopped by NR in order to save money.
One of the first things NR did after taking back the returned Jarvis Rail maintenance Contract in-house, was to close the Jarvis Rail state of the art operations centre in its then mode and shut down Jarvis's various staff safety systems, in order to save money and because the Jarvis systems proved just how appallingly bad NR were when it came to managing safety.
Note I said "returned" Maintenance Contract. Jarvis Rail walked away from the Maintenance Contract because simply because NR interference made it too risky to run as a viable proposition. Network Rail now claim that this was "removed" when history clearly demonstrates it never was.
Public criticism of Jarvis for any fault, and public credit claiming by NR for anything that went well was what marked out the Contract. It was finally decided that this together with the reputational risk was too great for Jarvis. On being told it was coming back to them, NR senior management collectively crapped themselves, especially when they discovered a marked reluctance on the part of the remaining Contractors to take on the Contract.
Another little known fact is that the maintenance teams were former Balfour Beatty teams who were generally pretty awful at doing that job. One of our first tasks when taking on the maintenance contract (which hand on heart we didn't want but Railtrack forced upon us) was to spend weeks squadron tamping in order to bring the track up to even minimal Jarvis standards.
We also had to dispense with numerous staff who were quite frankly failing to perform.
Massive strides were being taken to improve the shambles we inherited when we were hit by Potters Bar. Unfortunately as the incumbent Infrastructure Maintainer, there was little Jarvis could do, or indeed could have done in the short period since we inherited the Contract.
Some months sooner and it would have been yet again another Balfour Beatty derailment. Their history as a maintenance contractor is littered with derailments and incidents, sadly this has all been pushed to the background as a result of a well co-ordinated "get Jarvis" campaign. Remember that Hatfield happened under Balfour Beatty, yet on here some have hinted that this was a Jarvis incident because that is what has gained ground, and continues to be spoute dout by those who know little.
The various elements of the media, spurred on by a self seeking Government, and a hysterical response from "survivors" being led on by money hungry lawyers, meant that any realistic and independent review of the accident was never going to happen.
Jarvis Rail was judged and found guilty long before we even had the opportunity to complete the investigation process. Only one other set of points in the Uk was found to be in a poor condition and they were NOT on a Jarvis Contract area. Indeed Jarvis had inspected every single set of points in our Contract areas before Railtrack even understood the importance of such a course of action. Only belatedly did they start that process and far greater issues were found on other Contractors areas. Of course that little fact has been conveniently lost as well.
) that would be of interest? Im thinking things out of the ordinary, maybe along the lines of an estimated X% of passengers get on the wrong train, or X% of passengers have a season ticket, or X number of stations are unmanned, estimated X miles of track still with wood sleepers etc. Not something like Reading station has c14m entries/exits etc!
