I perceive, and it might only be perception, that track condition in the UK is not as good as on the continent. A few questions:
1. Is that a fair statement?
2. If so, why is it - older underlying infrastructure or we do not replace track as often as they do on the continent?
3. What problems does this cause to the track that could otherwise be avoided or reduced - unexpected track defects, worse performance in very hot/cold weather?
4. What costs does this cause to the TOCs/ROSCO's in terms of increased maintenance costs? Could an accelerated track replacement programme be justified on the ground of lower maintenance costs for trains (leaving aside the fact that the incentives to make this work are fragmented in the privatised industry we have).
5. Is there any other upside from accelerating track replacement in the UK (for instance reduced costs attributable to delay) and do forum members think this should be more of a priority than it is at the moment.
1) no idea I would need to see some track quality statistics for SNCF, DB etc.
2) I belive they have better engineering access on the continent. In Austria, Switzerland etc their track layouts are better configured for renewals and maintainence, they have more bi directional running and more cross. They also have a more robust asset strategy where for example s&c will undergo refurbishment at set points in its life which keep reliability high and keep the asset out of the failure cliff on the p2f curve where is becomes very expensive to repair the asset.
3) We've had a money starved BR and privatisation where sweating the asset was common policy, unfortunately this has lead to large renewals back logs, something we're still trying to get over.
As has been said in many places the engineering access has been eroded such that it's almost impossible to do track maintainence and renewals also become very expensive.
The routes rightly put the passengers first so they're very risk averse when it comes to over runs, meaning more contingency is required, this further reduces access and increased costs.
We've historically neglected drainage maintainence, this has caused formation failure in many places which greatly reduced the service life of the track system. Unfortunately we will still prioritise the track renewal over the drainage renewal so that within a short time the formation is failing again, basically throwing good money after bad.
However there are minimum standards of maintainence that need to be adhered to and we have a track asset policy which is designed to get the best value out of our renewals.
Poor track quality will lead to TRS's and ESR's which cost network rail money, that and say s&c failures are the direct cost to network rails. As I said before the overall whole life cost is increased if we cannot maintain and refurbish at the optimal time.
4) I don't think the TOC suffers too much, the trains are designed to withstand the forces. The decreased whole life cost is a very good reason to increase maintainence and refurbishment but as we work in 5 year cycles pushing the long term view isn't always easy although we are getting better.
5) think I answered it in 3!
