TENDERS will be invited later this year by South Africa's Department of Transport to conduct a study into the likely cost and feasibility of building high-speed lines between the country's main cities. ...
THE president of Russian Railways (RZD), Mr Vladimir Yakunin, has pledged that the Russian rail network will continue to be vertically integrated for at least another two years.
IRJ at the 1520 Strategic Partnership: Mr Vladimir Yakunin, president of Russian Railways (RZD), has confirmed that the first high-speed line to be built in Russia will connect Moscow with Kazan.
MTR Shenzhen, the operator of Shenzhen Metro Line 4, has awarded Nanjing SR Puzhen Rail Transport (NPRT) a Yuan 420m ($US 67.74m) contract to supply 56 metro cars which will be delivered in 2013-14
Nanjing SR Puzhen to deliver 56 train cars to Shenzhen Metro Line 4 in China Midas Holdings' joint venture company Nanjing SR Puzhen Rail Transport (NPRT) has received a RMB420m ($68.5m) contract from China's MTR Corporation to deliver 56 train cars to the metro system of Shenzhen in China's Guangdong province.
Alstom and its Russian partner Transmashholding (TMH) have entered into an agreement with Russian Railways (RZD) to jointly develop a new dual-voltage electric locomotive.
Thales-Maziya consortium wins railway signalling contract from Prasa
A consortium of Thales and Maziya has secured a €136m signalling contract from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa).
MTR uses beam-and-winch equipment on viaduct construction in Hong Kong
Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway (MTR) is using beam-and-winch viaduct erection equipment for the first time to build major parts of the viaduct section of the South Island Line (East) railway project
Construction firms fined £48,000 for worker injury at Winchester Station
Geoffrey Osborne Ltd and SSE Contracting Ltd have been fined a total of £48,000 and ordered to pay costs of £40,934 following a prosecution brought by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) for breaches of health and safety law which led to an electrician being injured after falling from height at Winchester Station, Hampshire, in 2010.On 9 December 2010, while rewiring an office within the station, an apprentice electrician employed by SSE Contracting fell over five metres through a ceiling onto a stairwell and suffered a dislocated elbow and a fractured foot. SSE Contracting had been sub-contracted by Geoffrey Osborne to complete electrical installation work as part of its refurbishment of Winchester Station.
The sentencing hearing at Aldershot Magistrates’ Court follows an investigation by ORR which found neither company had adequately planned for work taking place at height within the station. A detailed assessment of safety risks was not carried out and basic protective structures such as scaffold guardrails around the edge of the roof bordering the suspended ceiling were not installed. Both companies pleaded guilty to breaches of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court on 11 April 2013.
David Keay, ORR’s Head of Inspection, said:
"Geoffrey Osborne Ltd and SSE Contracting Ltd failed to work together and protect workers from the obvious safety risks of working at height in Winchester Station.
"This incident clearly demonstrates the need for all companies to take their responsibilities seriously, protecting workers with proper planning and assessment of risks, as well as installing basic safety measures such as scaffold guardrails. ORR will continue to press for further improvements in safety at rail construction sites, and if necessary, prosecute companies for criminal breaches in law."
Background information
Financial penalties imposed by the court:
- Geoffrey Osborne Ltd has been fined £24,000 and ordered to pay costs of £19,987.48.
- SSE Contracting Ltd has been fined £24,000 and ordered to pay costs of £20,946.87.
National Rail Trends Portal newsletter - May 2013
Welcome to the May edition of the National Rail Trends (NRT) portal newsletter.
As part of our commitment to improving the quality of our statistics and the service we provide to users, we have reviewed how we publish data and reports on the NRT Data Portal and decided to simplify our publication process. From Quarter 1 of the current financial year (2013-14), we will be moving to publishing themed statistical releases for our quarterly publications and discontinuing our quarterly summary. These releases will group together datasets common to a particular subject (e.g. performance) and provide context and commentary on the trends and features of the data. There will also be accompanying themed Quality Reports that will provide additional information on the accuracy, limitations, scope and development of the data.
With fuller information being provided in the statistical releases, we will be rationalising the tables and charts we release on our data portal, so you will see some changes to what is published there.
Some of the other changes around publication include adding new categories and renaming of existing categories for reports. We are also progressing our UKSA (United Kingdom Statistical Authority) accreditation which, if approved, will designate the releases as “National Statistics”. This badge is a recognised mark of quality and reflects the high-profile nature of the statistics. We’ll keep you informed of our progress in subsequent newsletters; as ever, please let us have any comments or concerns you may have.
What’s new?
- Average age of rolling stock 2012-2013 Q4: The average age of all rolling stock in 2012-13 Q4 was 18.64 years, an increase of 0.91 years on 2011-12 Q4. The average age for all rolling stock is at its highest since 2003-04 Q1 when it was 19.35 years. Long distance trains' average age increased by 0.37 years, average age of regional trains by 1.00 year and the average age of London and South East trains increased by 1.02 years in 2012-13 Q4, when compared to the same time last year. In 2012-13 Q4 16 of the franchised train operators' average age of rolling stock increased by one year on 2011-12 Q4. None of the operators experienced a decrease in the average age of rolling stock compared to 2011-12 Q4.
- Freight performance measure 2012-2013 Q4: FPM in 2012-13 Q4 was 70.8%, a decrease of 4.6 percentage points on 2011-12 Q4. The moving annual average (MAA) represents the average performance of freight trains over the previous four quarters. The FPM MAA at 2012-13 Q4 stands at 74.1%, this is 1.7 percentage points lower than Q4 last year.
- Public Performance measure 2012-2013 Q4: 89.9% of trains were recorded as meeting PPM requirements (“on time”) during 2012-13 Q4. The proportion of trains on time is 2 percentage points lower than Q4 last year. The long distance sector had 85% of trains on time during 2012-13 Q4. This is 5.3 percentage points lower than 2011-12 Q4 but 1.3 percentage points higher than 2012-13 Q3. 89.5% of trains in the London and South East sector were on time during 2012-13 Q4 which is 1.7 percentage points lower than 2011-12 Q4. The regional sector had 91.4% of trains on time, 1.9 percentage points lower than Q4 last year. 5 out of the 19 franchised train operators had a higher percentage of trains on time in 2012-13 Q4 when compared to Q4 last year. Of the franchised train operators, East Coast recorded the lowest proportion of trains on time with a PPM of 77.1% during 2012-13 Q4 whilst Virgin Trains have the lowest PPM MAA, 83.6% at the end of 2012-13 Q4. With 97.1% c2c had the highest PPM during 2012-13 Q4. They also had the highest PPM MAA at the end of 2012-13 Q4 with 97.5%.
- Signals passed at danger 2012-2013 Q4: There were 61 signals passed at danger (SPADs) in 2012-13 Q4. Although the total number of SPADs for 2012-13 Q4 have gone up by 1 compared to 2011-12 Q4, the total number of SPADs for 2012-13 has been the lowest yearly total since the time series began. The number of SPADs in the potentially severe category in 2012-13 Q4 was 1. This was the lowest ever, with the exception of 2011-12 Q2 which was also 1, since the time series began.
Current and future reports
- NRT Quarterly Summary (Q3): The latest quarterly report is now available at:http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/
upload/pdf/quarterly-nrt- report-2012-13-q3.pdf. This report provides a summary of rail industry performance in Great Britain for 2012-13 Q3, drawing on all of the National Rail Trends (NRT) data that was released on the ORR data portal (http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/ ) in the last quarter. Please note that this document is unchanged once published and you should always check the NRT data portal as data may have been updated.
o Appeals opened by Passenger Focus or London TravelWatch- As part of our commitment to maintaining the quality of all our data we run a quality assurance process. This process has identified issues with comparability betweenthe London TravelWatch and Passenger Focus data used to produce the Appeals opened by Passenger Focus or London TravelWatch table andComplaints received by Passenger Focus or London TravelWatch table. As data quality is critical, we will not be publishing the 2012-13 Q4 update to these tables on Thursday 20th June. The rest of the complaints publications are not affected by this and will be published as scheduled on Thursday morning. We are investigating this issue with our data suppliers and we will publish updated datasets as soon as possible. These tables will not be available on the NRT Data Portal until we have rectified the problem. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. For any further information, please contact the statistics Head of Profession, Jay Lindop atjay.lindop@orr.gsi.gov.uk or on 0207 282 3978.
o Crowding data- Our commitment to transparency means working with our data providers to ensure relevant datasets are disseminated to users, while at the same time avoiding duplication. Crowding data is an area where we believe we can become more efficient. To date, subsets of the crowding data have been supplied to us by Department for Transport (DfT) and published on the NRT Data Portal, despite them already being published on the DfT website at an earlier date. From August 2013 we will therefore stop publishing the crowding data and instead provide a reference (sign-posting) to the data on the DfT website. The sign-posting will start with the 2012-13 data, due to be published by DfT in July 2013.
- For a list of reports and datasets recently added, please see:https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/
release-history. To view a list of all forthcoming reports and when they are published, refer to our publication schedule at:http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/ server/show/nav.1862.
(UK) Network Rail
National train performance for period 2 is 93.5%
Punctuality on the railways reached 93.5% during Period 2, according to monthly performance data released today by Network Rail.
The data for Britain's train services covers the period from 28 April 2013 - 25 May 2013. This compares to 92.3% for the same period last year. The moving annual average is now at 91.0%.
Right time train performance data (% of trains arriving within 59 seconds of schedule) both for period 10 and for the year to the end of period 10 are also available by using this link http://www.networkrail.co.uk/about/performance/
| Franchise |
Punctuality %
Period 2, 2013/14 |
Punctuality %
Period 2, 2012/13 |
Moving annual
average (MAA) |
| Arriva Trains Wales |
95.9
|
93.9
|
93.5
|
| c2c Rail |
98.2
|
97.2
|
97.3
|
| Chiltern |
97.3
|
95.0
|
95.2
|
| Crosscountry |
91.6
|
88.0
|
87.2
|
| East Coast |
89.4
|
87.7
|
84.1
|
| East Midlands Trains |
95.1
|
91.9
|
92.6
|
| First Capital Connect |
91.8
|
89.2
|
88.5
|
| First Great Western |
92.6
|
90.4
|
89.1
|
| First Scotrail |
93.7
|
94.6
|
92.8
|
| First Transpennine Express |
95.6
|
94.4
|
91.9
|
| Greater Anglia |
95.7
|
92.5
|
92.6
|
| London Midland |
89.2
|
90.4
|
85.8
|
| London Overground |
96.5
|
96.1
|
96.6
|
| Merseyrail |
97.2
|
95.0
|
95.7
|
| Northern Rail |
93.4
|
93.9
|
90.6
|
| Southeastern |
93.9
|
92.6
|
91.2
|
| Southern |
90.9
|
90.2
|
87.9
|
| South West Trains |
94.2
|
91.6
|
91.7
|
| Virgin Trains |
85.7
|
82.9
|
83.7
|
| Total National Performance |
93.5
|
92.3
|
91.0
|
Notes:
- Infrastructure problems, overhead line and signalling equipment, caused the majority of delays on the West Coast Main Line during the period thus impacting upon Virgin’s punctuality. A series of measures to address performance on the Southern end of the route will be announced in the next few weeks
- Arrived on time - the measure of train punctuality also known as PPM (public performance measure) means trains arriving at their destinations within five minutes for commuter services and within 10 minutes for long distance services.
- This measure of punctuality is commonly used throughout Europe
- National train punctuality is measured for all trains across the whole network, including cancelled services and delays caused by external factors (such as vandalism, extreme weather, suicides etc).
- Punctuality did not start to be recorded in this vigorous and thorough way until 1997. Before then Railtrack, and BR before, did not measure all services and also excluded external factors and other items from their numbers
- These figures represent provisional data for the period and individual operators' performance data may vary slightly from the full period performance report that
- Network Rail publishes on its website every month
- Network Rail and the train operators run more trains across Great Britain than are run in most European countries - almost 20% more than in France and 60% more than in Italy.
- Great Britain's 24,000 trains per-day is also more than Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Norway combined
Great Western Railway clock is lovingly restored
A 19th century Great Western Railway clock has been lovingly restored to its former glory by Network Rail after it stopped working two years ago.
The GWR clock, which dates back to 1852, is a double-aspect clock and keeps time at the historic Severn Bridge Junction signal box in Shrewsbury – the largest mechanical signal box in the world.
The signal box, which opened in 1904, and its internal fitments are Grade 2 listed and it operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It houses 180 levers controlling track signals and points – of which 90 are still in use.
The clock would have been produced for a large signal box with a minimum of two signallers, one at each end of the frame – the method of operation in use today at Severn Bridge Junction.
Mark Langman, Network Rail’s Wales route managing director, said: “The clock was originally built by the Great Western Railway at its famous Swindon works and first used in the Oxford area – though we can’t be sure at which signal box.
“It had been keeping time at Severn Bridge Junction signal box for many years until it stopped ticking two years ago and was put into safe storage.
“We sourced a local expert in Adrian Donnelly, a Shrewsbury-based clock and barometer specialist, who has done a wonderful job restoring the clock back to its best.
The signal box, which opened in 1904, and its internal fitments are Grade 2 listed and it operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It houses 180 levers controlling track signals and points – of which 90 are still in use.
The clock would have been produced for a large signal box with a minimum of two signallers, one at each end of the frame – the method of operation in use today at Severn Bridge Junction.
Mark Langman, Network Rail’s Wales route managing director, said: “The clock was originally built by the Great Western Railway at its famous Swindon works and first used in the Oxford area – though we can’t be sure at which signal box.
“It had been keeping time at Severn Bridge Junction signal box for many years until it stopped ticking two years ago and was put into safe storage.
“We sourced a local expert in Adrian Donnelly, a Shrewsbury-based clock and barometer specialist, who has done a wonderful job restoring the clock back to its best.
“Adrian enthused on the quality of the mechanism and has accurately dated its manufacture back to 1852. By completing this important restoration, another piece of railway heritage has been preserved for future generations."
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