Also, this is the railway. The place where being an approved supplier for network rail is a license to print a ton of money
I did have to wonder how a footbridge in Cheshunt cost over £2m. Steps and a ramp (no lifts, not even any lighting or CCTV).
Foundations that look like they'd support The Shard probably cost a bit, and it also took many months to finish - even though I'd expect a fair bit of the work could be done without impacting the railway alongside (just when the top section was put in).
And the funniest (!) thing was that even after it opened, it had gaps that were big enough that a small dog could probably fit through (I say this as it's by Lea Valley Park and is used by an incredibly large number of dog walkers). So for quite some time after it was in use, it had bits of wood tied up to close the gaps until someone came and welded new sections on.
£2m for a footbridge suddenly makes platform work seem like a bargain!
(To be fair, it's a nice bridge
)
That is a very fair point. However, the creeping cancer of astronomical expenditure is present throughout the railway, not just in terms of the requirements for engineering work. In almost all aspects, be it supplies of kit or equipment, office and technical services, maintenance of rolling stock and so on, everything costs far more than it should. Where construction is concerned, I remain unconvinced that it is cheaper to use a growing plethora of rail contractors - you see new unheard of names plastered on vans and on workmen's hi viz garb on a regular basis - than it would be for the railway to employ a well utilised workforce of it's own. One or two major contractors then perhaps, but the cost of numerous small outfits all with their own costs and overheads, with more emerging all the time....as I say, I'm unconvinced. I once sold a car to bloke who worked for one particular contractor, and he mentioned a station refurb job going on at the time. His firm was merely a 'middle man', winning the contract before immediately delegating the work out to somebody else, no 'boots on the ground' at all and just a nice slice of profit for themselves for doing precious little. I realise this is far from uncommon of course, but in an environment where so much money is being handed over, are we really saving anything by lining the pockets of numerous firms to get a single job done? I do wonder.
Well said.
It's hardy unique to the railway either. Look at the councils outsourcing work to large organisations and seemingly oblivious to the fact that these firms bid low to win work, knowing they can get the real profit through the extra work they're allowed (example; they win a servicing contact for gas heating, but can claim for boiler upgrades and repairs - and then miraculously find almost every council house needs work doing), and will outsource the work themselves too.
When things go wrong it gets really hard to then place the blame too. While you'd imagine the council would be responsible and take the blame automatically, it rarely happens and you just get loads of expensive buck passing.
It's just as lucrative to be involved in doing work for local authorities and acting as middle men that just take a cut. The council still likes it because when they awarded a 10 or 15 year contract, they could show a cost saving (and not worry too much about what happens later on when they've retired or joined the board of the company!).
I do accept that working on any live railways will mean higher costs, but we're talking about costs that are so much higher that you do begin to wonder how it's allowed or considered acceptable (acceptable as in a blind eye being turned).
Really?! Are you sure? How much do you think the component parts of an aged, battered Avantix ticket machine would be worth on the open market? And how much do you think every TOC in the land is paying to lease them? And then paying again every single time they need to send the equipment back to the firm they already pay a fortune to lease it from because it is knackered? And then paying the same firm again for replacement parts? What about logging a fault on a station, getting a contractor out to change a bulb in a lampost? Or obtaining parts for rolling stock through the required 'approved' supplier network? Be assured there is precious little value for money being obtained in most of the areas. I'm not suggesting that TOCs don't want to save money, of course they do, but in many cases they are simply hamstrung by the red tape of process and procedure. It is here that major savings could and should be made.
Last Sunday, I was at Hatfield station to pick up my parents coming back from Scotland with heavy bags. Even with the lifts, they'd maybe appreciate some help.
I got there and found one of the lifts was out. I then spoke to the lady on duty (everything else was closed) who said it wasn't the first time, but it was a bad day due to the Lollibops festival at Hatfield House. Suffice to say, just about everyone going to/from there had a buggy or two.
Someone had been sent out to fix it, but didn't have the relevant authority to work on some of the equipment so someone else had to be sent out - which wouldn't be until the Monday.
Now I bet there was still a cost for the initial visit. Maybe the assumption you could 'switch it off and on' (so to speak) but still worthy of the relevant call out fee that someone has to pay for.
And I was also told there have been many failures of the lifts, even though they only got turned on in July (and not through vandalism). I don't know how much they cost, but why are brand new lifts failing exactly?
Then you get people coming out to fix ticket machines, but can only work on that machine or manufacturer, so ignore the broken one next to it.
The whole setup can really be a total nightmare, and must contribute to the excessive cost of the railway. But we do of course prefer to blame the fat cats at the private train companies for creaming off all the profits...
I also believe tool and plant hire also take us for a jolly ride
The system encourages it though. Once you have people thinking that 'it's not my money' then you can do what you like.
You turn up to hire something, get charged a ridiculous fee and have two choices; a) Say 'you're having a laugh mate' or b) yeah, sure, whatever, not my money.
Option b obviously means you've probably now made a good friend at that place. Will probably help you out next time you're in need too, so all good.
And if someone is over your shoulder looking at the cost, there are always way to manipulate the figures if necessary. Maybe lower the hire costs, but introduce some other 'miscellaneous' fees here and there.
) - and it just struck me as an interested observer that the figures for building platforms always seemed disproportionately expensive, compared to items I'd expect to be big-ticket, like signalling.
