Due to the conditions over the last week or so. How much renewal work has been either cancelled on the night or during the days before?
I am thinking of Weekend relay shifts, Follow up Tamps, Stressing etc
All items that might either be subject to lower temperature limits or at the risk of introducing snow into the formation.
Will the deferred works now have to wait for the same period next year or manage to get re instated early thus reducing the risk of COT TSRs?
I can comment about this as far as it applied to earlier this year when I still had responsibility for such issues. I doubt much has changed.
Follow up works, FUTs are generally much easier to recover as generally they can be carried out in non-disruptive Possessions. That said of course losing a stressing shift in a busy renewals workbank can lead to a whole host of problems as it can become a high risk CRT site in the summer, especially when rail has been installed in low temperatures.
Sometimes the ability to recover follow up works is made difficult by the intransigence of the TOC/FOCs who will sometimes refuse additional Possessions within the T-37 timescale just to be seen to be making the point. I had such a case a while back where the TOC who had the greatest risk of impact from a series of stresses just refused to work with us. It was pointed out that as the summer approached it would end up with up to one third of the approach a main London terminal being subject to ESR. All to no avail, this particular TOC was willing to go and make the point.
So in true OT style, I left them to contemplate their enjoy their "victory".
Time moves on and suddenly we are going into a very hot summer period.
As warned that I would do, 20 ESRs were implemented, immediately after lunchtime and into the late evening, as the days got warmer one line was blocked. Then resultant late running started to cascade in evening peak cancellations as the train service fell apart on a bigger and bigger scale as the day went on.
The agonised screaming, wailing and general gnashing of teeth could be heard emanating from the TOC HQ when they were told the likely timescale for remediation was a joy to behold, especially when it was made perfectly clear that the men who would do the stressing overnight were actually the very ones who were now required to track watch the lines concerned and of course could not be released from this onerous duty unless the lines were closed all day.
Suddenly of course the TOC could not facilitate enough Possessions however hot days lead into warm nights which do not cool the rails sufficiently to stress.
Several weeks of unannounced ESRs taught that particular TOC a very painful and I am sure expensive lesson, and that is that you listen when the Infrastructure Engineers give advice.
No Infrastructure Engineer finds pleasure in the job being stopped or trains being delayed because of silly issues such as heat related ESRs, but sometimes intransigence has to be let to take its natural course and the inevitable consequences that follow on from that.
Of course the inevitable problem of losing a follow up shift is that NR do not want to pay for the cost of a non-safety of line replacement, and thus you can see the results of that in terms of sleepers and rail left lineside, as well as sometimes old panels, parts of panels, and mounds of ballast left lineside.
