01.01.15
A black Christmas
Source: Rail Technology Magazine Dec/Jan 2015
Nine months into Control Period 5, and there is a lot more bad news around than we have been used to in recent years.
There have always been and will always be engineering over-runs, but their timing and scale after Christmas, and the poorly-handled back-up arrangements, have made this particular bout of disruption more high-profile than most. Still, the problems were solved relatively quickly – this was not a fiasco on the level of Christmas 2007-08, for example.
Much more worrying is the drip-drip-drip of bad news coming out of electrification schemes around the country. Many are behind schedule, some are over-budget, and some are in a bizarrely unready and unclear state, notably the uncosted trans-Pennine electrification.
These schemes are good and necessary, and should form just the start of a rolling, multi-CP programme of even wider electrification. So delays – or any loss of confidence at the Department for Transport or, worse, the Treasury – are a cause for alarm for anyone who cares about the railways.
Some budget forecasts proving to be underestimates is not that surprising: the more detailed and technical work required to cost things properly on projects this size often turn up previously overlooked issues. Electrification also faces the issues of stretched resources, in terms of manpower and plant availability, and some relatively untried heavy equipment and technology.
CP5 has also been a disappointment so far in terms of train performance, with punctuality decisively down from what now looks to have been a peak in the middle of CP4. Looking at the trend graph for right-time performance (which uses a stricter measure for ‘on time’ than the industry standard PPM), the picture is even more clear – and disheartening. Performance is back where it was in 2007-08, a dismal five percentage points down on the peaks in 2010-11 and 2012-13.
With warning bells sounding at the ORR in terms of both performance and enhancements, let’s hope that 2015 is a better year for infrastructure projects than 2014 was.
It will certainly be a good year for the companies shortlisted for the UK Rail Industry Awards on 19 February.
This is the event’s second year, bigger and better than 2014, and if you have a read of the shortlist in the special fold-out supplement in the middle of this edition of RTM, you’ll see that there is certainly plenty to celebrate.
Full details about the awards night, including how to book your ticket, are available on the RTM website and at ukria.com – we really hope to see you there on the night!
Adam Hewitt
Editor