Network Rail regulation and performance

NR warns suppliers not to get left behind

15.03.18: Network Rail is warning suppliers to act now or risk being locked out of the rail market. With less than 50 days until the enhanced Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme (RISQS) goes live, the infrastructure manager has told its supply...

NR looks for new alliances as £5bn track work tendered

14.03.18: Network Rail has issued a Prior Information Notice (PIN) process for its tender exercise on the next generation of track works contracts, worth up to £5bn. The PIN was issued via the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), and the...

NR trials drones for large railway structure inspections

12.03.18: Network Rail is trialling the use of drones to inspect large structures in a safer, more cost-efficient way. The vehicles are being used on the London North Eastern and East Midlands route to examine five arch viaducts along the route, includin...

Network Rail CP6 plan: Route details revealed

14.02.18: Network Rail has revealed further information about individual funding to its eight national routes following this week’s Strategic Business Plan. London North Western is to receive the greatest proportion of funding, with £5.8b...

Network Rail unveils ‘radical’ CP6 plan with aim to drop delays by 15%

13.02.18: Network Rail has released its much-anticipated Strategic Business Plan for CP6, with plans including a 15% drop in delays across the network and a commitment to hire 50% more women over the five-year period. The programme covers all of NR&r...

Ex-Carillion employees working on NR projects will be paid until at least April

22.01.18: Network Rail bosses have today confirmed that former Carillion employees working on railway projects will be paid until at least April of this year. The news follows the announcement that the construction giant – one of NR’s maj...

SWR and NR answer to passenger watchdog over poor performance

10.01.18: South Western Railway (SWR) and Network Rail (NR) bosses were brought in front of the national passenger watchdog this week, following poor performance and disruption across the network. Transport Focus called the meeting to allow both orga...

GTR providing ‘worst performance on the network’

10.01.18: Govia Thameslink Railway has been panned by the National Audit Office (NAO) after a review found it offered the “worst performance on the network” and had not delivered value for money. The struggling franchise, which represents...

Top Network Rail supplier under investigation by the FCA

03.01.18: Carillion PLC, one of Network Rail’s biggest suppliers and a key HS2 contractor, is under investigation by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. The independent financial watchdog is looking into the “timeliness and conten...

ORR: Punctuality and reliability of rail services improves in Q2

07.12.17: Both the punctuality and the reliability of passenger rail services have improved in the second quarter of 2017-18 compared with both the same period last year and the final quarter of 2016-17. In its review of passenger and freight rail pe...

ORR: Train performance improving but still not hitting targets

05.12.17: Train performance in England and Wales has improved but is still some way short of hitting both Network Rail and regulatory targets. The ORR’s Network Rail Monitor report for the last six-month period also shows that there has been si...

NAO: Rail network ‘cannot reliably support’ new Thameslink services

23.11.17: The current state of the rail network is not fit to support the new Thameslink Programme and will cause future delays and problems. It has been revealed – following an investigation from the National Audit Office (NAO) – that Ne...

Caledonian hit by delays and poor performance as c2c tops period 8

21.11.17: Caledonian Sleeper services hit the bottom of Network Rail’s Public Performance Measures, with C2C topping the chart. Caledonian, which took over from First ScotRail in 2015, only had 73.8% of services come in within NR’s five-m...

Network Rail announces major sell-off of entire commercial portfolio

17.11.17: Network Rail will seek a major cash boost through the sale of its commercial property portfolio in England and Wales, announced today. The infrastructure manager is looking for private bidders on a mostly leaseholder basis while retaining t...

TfN statutory status pushed back to April

16.11.17: Transport for the North (TfN) is likely to be officially recognised as a statutory body as transformative legislation lands in the House of Commons today – but the official deadline has been pushed back from this year to April 2018. L...