UK & International Railway News Sunday 18th January 2015

..Total Railway News

London King's Cross.(C) P.S. Lewis


The weekend's news features the Channel Tunnel fire.....
A scrap metal database.... building on the reduction in cable theft crime...
A look ahead to the rest of the month's railtours...
And The Railway Chronicle's exchange with Mark Carne, Network Rail CEO...


Read on...or click on the links...


Headlines
UK
Channel Tunnel train services resume after fire.(BBC News)


Channel Tunnel closure: Eurostar services set to resume.(BBC News)


West Midlands pilot for scrap metal database.(BBC News)






Mark Carne, Network Rail CEO  in discussion with The Railway Chronicle

This has been a difficult week for Network Rail. Following the overrunning engineering which resulted in severe congestion issues at London Kings Cross, London Paddington and Finsbury Park, Network Rail's CEO Mark Carne and Operations Director Robin Gisby were invited to appear before the House of Commons Transport Select Committee, and explain the "farce"..(Chair's opening comment)

The session is viewable on Parliament TV.....

So, The Railway Chronicle very much appreciates the time that Mark Carne has taken to answer some questions posed by Peter S Lewis for The Railway Chronicle.....

Mark Carne Network Rail Chief Executive

(Network Rail Picture)

Q1: The last year has been a trying one for the network... Dawlish, flooding, the current situation.. Something of a baptism of fire!! So, what have you found to be a factor in maintaining a positive outlook?

 

A1: Two things spring immediately to mind, the people and the challenge. When I joined in February last year the network was under siege by some of the worst weather the country had seen for over 200yrs. Very heavy rain had flooded the Somerset levels and caused over 400 land slips across the country.  We had dozens of sites where our railway resembled lakes and rivers and of course a huge storm in the south west had breached the sea wall at Dawlish and washed away some 60m of railway, cutting off the rail connection to Cornwall. But in traveling around the country, visiting many of these locations, time and time again I found dedicated, committed, professionals working tirelessly and innovatively to fix the railway and get services up and running again as quickly as possible.  I saw the very best of our people and that has given me tremendous confidence that we will be able to deliver what is required of us - our huge challenge.

 

In less than 20yrs passenger numbers using our railway has doubled. We're carrying 1.2m more people a week today than just 12 months ago and this demand and growth is tremendous. What business doesn't want to see it customer base grow! But this success does present massive challenges as our old and constrained network tries to cope with record numbers of trains and people and congestion is having a very noticeable impact on train performance. Improving underlying train performance is our first challenge.

 

Our second challenge is to improve, grow and expand our railway to respond to this unprecedented demand. We are in the midst of the biggest sustained investment programme since Victorian times. £25bn will be invested in improving our railway in the five years to 2019 in removing bottlenecks on the network, adding more capacity, delivering better, faster more frequent services and hugely improved stations.

 

But things do sometimes go wrong, as we saw at King's Cross and Paddington on December 27(2014), and these events have a very severe impact on passengers. Over the festive period we had almost 2,500 possessions. 99% of these were handed back on time or early with only two (Kings Cross & Paddington) causing significant passenger disruption.  I completely understand that our track record here is of no consolation to those caught up in the upheaval we caused. We have investigated those incidents thoroughly and publicly issued our findings and the full report on January 12, which can be found on our website. There are plenty of lessons to be learnt, but we cannot afford to be diverted from our task of improving Britain’s railways

 

 

Q2.Punctuality is an issue over which the popular (and unpopular!) press regularly challenge and criticize Network Rail....What particular strategy has NR in place to cope with this? And how much does this cost NR in terms of compensation to the TOCs?

A2: Performance varies across the country and it is therefore important that each of our operational routes and their partner train operator(s) have their own specific improvement plan targeted on the issues most relevant to them.  However, it is also true that there are common themes that span the industry.  These themes should be a consistent 'rallying cry' used by industry leaders to explain what we are doing and to give passengers, employees and the general public confidence that we know what the issues are and are addressing them head-on!     

There are five core strategies that we, as an industry, are adopting to improve performance;

1. Increase asset reliability (fixed and rolling stock)
2. Eliminate temporary speed restrictions
3. Increase weather resilience
4. Improve operation to the timetable, and improve the timetables themselves
5. Reduce the impact of reactionary delay.

 

Q3. Another issue seems to be overcrowding, particularly at peak times. This is a  TOC problem. How easy/difficult is it for the TOCs  to just add a carriage or two to a train? Presumably there is some protocol involving Network Rail? On a related matter, what can be done to safeguard the public on crowded platforms? ( A case reported today of a woman falling in front of an arriving train....)Is there a case for barriers at the platform edge in notorious places?

A3. At peak times, our railway in many places is full. Every piece of rolling stock is in use. Over the last 20 years we have seen passenger numbers double to 1.6bn per year. In the last year alone we have seen growth of 1.2m people more using the railway per week.  We have a full, congested and constrained network with the current train fleet (almost 13,000 carriages) which is why we have the huge investment programme we have to improve and expand the network which includes thousands of brand new train carriages

 

Q4. Network Rail has a safety vision... everyone getting home safely.(Amey have a video outlining a near miss on one of their level crossing work sites last year.) What are your feelings about level crossings in general?

A4. It would be ideal if there were none. If we were building our railway today from scratch we would design it without any level crossings as we have done with HS1 and as we are doing with HS2. Any interface between train and people and vehicles creates inherent risk and our job is try to reduce that risk to a low as is reasonably practicable. Over the last five years we’ve reduced the risk at levels by 25% mainly through closing over 800 level crossings. By 2019 our target is to reduce risk by a further 25% through closure and a programme of safety enhancements

 

 

Q5. Network Rail have had many projects come to completion on time.... so the current situation is unfortunate...Without pre-empting tomorrow's appearance(before the Transport Select Committee), what factors didn't help?

A5. See report  HERE

Extract from Mark Carne's introduction to the 36 page report by Dr Francis Paonessa,Managing Director Infrastructure Projects, Network Rail...

The report describes a number of improvements that must be made. I would highlight three that deserve special prominence.

1. Improve the effectiveness of our project and operational contingency plans so that we put minimising passenger disruption at the very heart of our planning.

2. Improve our management of the performance of critical contractors and, in the case of one specific contractor, do a better job of working with them to improve their signalling commissioning process.

3. Work with industry colleagues to improve service recovery and to provide better information to passengers.

Q6.What are your hopes for the current year, let alone the current Control Period

A6. My priorities are very clear:

    1. Improve the underlying performance of the network and its 24,000 daily services

    2. Improve our railway through the successful delivery of our huge £25bn investment programme

    3. Reduce the cost of running our railway. We have been set a target of a 20% saving by 2019, on top of the almost 40% reduction we’ve delivered since 2004

    4. Plan for the future – develop robust long-terms plans for radically increasing the capacity of our network through the use of digital technology.

The Railway Chronicle wishes to place on record its thanks for this interview.

We wish Mark Carne and Network Rail well for the coming months and years as various projects come to completion...Thameslink, Crossrail... and as others start.. HS2?

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Sunday 18th January 2015

BLS Merseyrail 750v Tracker (Branch Line Society)

• Merseyrail Class 507/508 EMU Hooton (pu) - Rock Ferry - James Street (pu) - Stock Interchange Stabling Sidings - James Street - Birkenhead North - West Kirby - Bidston East Junction - Birkenhead North Depot Washer Road - Birkenhead North Back Road - New Brighton - Bidston East Junction - Birkenhead North - Hamilton Square -James Street - Liverpool Central - Liverpool Central Reversing Siding - Liverpool Central - Kirkdale Depot Washer Line - Aintree - Aintree Signal 1206 - Aintree - Kirkdale Depot North Run Round Line - Sandhills Reversing Siding - Southport - Southport Signal 112 - Southport Wall Siding - Southport Signal 112 - Southport - Southport Sidings No. 10 - Southport -Southport Signal 112 - Birkdale Siding No. 3 - Hall Road Signal 1055 - Hall Road Wallside Siding - Liverpool Central - Liverpool South Parkway (sd) - Liverpool Central - Stock interchange Line - James Street (sd) - Hamilton Square - Rock Ferry - Hooton

Friday 23rd January 2015

Belmond British Pullman Luncheon Train (Belmond (British Pullman))

• 35028 London Victoria (pu) - Staines - Woking - Guildford - Shalford - Reigate - Redhill - East Croydon - London Victoria

Saturday 24th January 2015

The Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express (Railway Touring Company)

• 5690 and 45407 Manchester Victoria (pu) - Bolton (pu) - Preston (pu) - Shap - Carlisle
• 5690 and 45407 Carlisle - Appleby - S&C - Hellifield - Blackburn (sd) - Bolton (sd) - Manchester Victoria

Additional Tour Information

2/1: 45407 replaces 45699

Added 18:09 on Friday 2nd January 2015

Friday 30th January 2015

The English Bulldog (re-dated To 9 May 2015) (UK Railtours)

• tbc London Waterloo (pu) - Clapham Junction (pu) - Staines (pu) - Virginia Water - Reading - Oxford - Evesham - Worcester Shrub Hill
• tbc Worcester Shrub Hill (pu) - Cheltenham Spa - Stroud - Sapperton - Kemble - Swindon - Reading (sd) - Virginia Water - Staines (sd) - Clapham Junction (sd) - London Waterloo

Postponed

Saturday 31st January 2015

The Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express (Railway Touring Company)

• 86259 London Euston (pu) - Watford Junction (pu) - Milton Keynes Central (pu) - Northampton (by service train to Rugby) - Rugby - Nuneaton - Crewe (pu)
• 46233 Crewe - Warrington Bank Quay - Preston - Carnforth - Shap - Carlisle
• 46233 Carlisle - Appleby - S&C - Hellifield - Blackburn (sd) (for Preston) - Warrington Bank Quay - Crewe (sd)
• 86259 Crewe - Nuneaton (sd) - Rugby (sd) - (Northampton by service train from Rugby) - Milton Keynes Central (sd) - Watford Junction (sd) - London Euston

International

Bangladesh

Railway revenue sees Tk 22 lakh cut a day (The Daily Star)

India

Konkan Railway site to turn showroom for traditional products (Times of India)

Photographs courtesy: Konkan Railway

Govt has no intention to privatise Railway & Coal India: Fin Min.(Day & Night News)