After 94 years of lobbying... pre-grouping companies are back!
This from Kaizen...
Featured as the Daily Telegraph’s Fund of the Week in last Saturday's investment feature was John Laing Infrastructure.
Its manager explained: 'The key idea is focusing on assets where we get paid regardless of how much they are used. This means it doesn't matter how many patients are at the hospital or how many people drive on the motorway'.
Listed at Number 8 in the Trust's Top 10 holdings is, a 27.5 year deal that meets all these criteria - our very own Intercity Express Programme.
This written answer given by Paul Maynard yesterday:
John Redwood (Wokingham): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the cost overruns on major projects at Network Rail have been in the last five years.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys): The rail regulator, Office of Rail and Road, publishes annual efficiency and finance assessments of Network Rail. These includes their assessments of Network Rail’s performance in relation to both major enhancement projects and other areas of spend. In their assessment of 2015/16 the ORR noted an ‘enhancements underperformance of £115m’.
These annual assessments can be found here:- http://orr.gov.uk/rail/economic-regulation/regulation-of-network-rail/monitoring-performance/efficiency-and-finance-assessment
This Government has been clear about the affordability and deliverability challenges faced in the current investment programme (Control Period 5 2014-2019). This is why in 2015 Sir Peter Hendy was asked to replan the programme to put it on a more sustainable footing.
Following Sir Peter's review we have revised our approach to major projects. The effective governance the Department has put in place is helping to manage the programme within the fixed funding available.
Thank goodness the "effective governance" put in place will ensure there are no more nasty surprises in CP5...
This from the Yorkshire Post...
"Engineering services group Renew Holdings said the chief executive of transport group Go-Ahead has joined the group.
"David Brown has joined Leeds-based Renew as a non-executive director with immediate effect."
This from ASLEF...
ASLEF drivers have rejected a proposed resolution to the long-running dispute with Southern Rail. The following question was put to our driver members employed by Southern. Do you accept the proposed agreement on driver only operation and related issues on GTR Southern services?
Yes: 346 [48.2%]
No: 372 [51.8%]
Papers despatched: 953
Papers returned: 718
Turnout: 75.4%
Invalid papers: 0
Papers to be counted: 718
Mick Whelan, general secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, said: ‘We understand and support the decision arrived at in a democratic vote by our drivers and will now seek new talks with the company and work to deliver a resolution to this dispute in line with the expectations of our members.’
This is beginning to look like a vote of 'no confidence' in ASLEF's Executive.
Greater Anglia has posted images of its new Stadler and Bombardier trains.
Private sector to break Welwyn bottleneck
Eye understands that Treasury is close to signing a significant deal on ECML capacity enhancement, involving private sector finance.
The ECML’s greatest capacity limitation is the two track section at Welwyn North. In 2000 Railtrack proposed widening the viaduct and boring new tunnels to provide four tracks throughout, and Eye understands Provisional compulsory purchase orders were put in place.
With the demise of Railtrack these schemes lapsed and the 2000 plan is now, of course, seen as politically unacceptable, not least by local MP Michael Green.
An internal NR document seen by Eye headed - Project: Rail-Loop (F) - which has already cleared most GRIP stages, proposes Welwyn North Base Tunnel (WNBT).
Engineering studies are believed to suggest a tunnel built to the same maximum 2.5% gradient specified for HS2 would be both feasible and less intrusive. As well as an acceptable alternative to doubling the viaduct plus second tunnels parallel to the existing bore.
The document says:
"Within the HS2 parameters the 1.4 mile ramps would place the southern portal of the WNBT on the disused sidings to the East of Welwyn Garden City station. At its deepest the tunnel would run some 25 metres, below the surface of the Mimram Valley and the viaduct, before climbing to the surface and joining the existing ECML alignment beside the North portal of the existing tunnel near Woolmer Green Junction. At Crossrail speeds tunnelling would take around a year."
Eye understands that final sign off from Treasury and DfT on WNBT is dependent on Chris Gibb’s review into the 2018 Thameslink timetable. As the proposed Thameslink TT renders EMT and VTEC service enhancements almost undeliverable additional capacity is desperately required.
The construction of WNBT would be independent of the existing railway aside from the connections at each end. Making an ideal candidate for private finance, attractive to both funders and existing consortia, especially those with suitable tunnelling machines released from current schemes.
Operational benefits would include separation of local and Thameslink services from long distance trains. Depending on the speed in the new tunnels there could also be a slight reduction in journey times.
DfT and NR were unable to comment.
The Independent has published a piece that will further fuel concerns in the infrastructure supply chain.
It quotes the following from an 'NR memo':
“The last time the track renewals industry had a cost challenge of this magnitude, 7-8 years ago, the supply chain suffered massively (we lost a principal contractor and many second tier suppliers)…this is going to be a tough couple of years for the whole industry.”
Full article, here.
UPDATE: The Campaign for Better Transport are quick off the blocks!
Stephen Joseph, Chief Executive, Campaign for Better Transport, said:
"These cuts are likely to mean more delays and worse journeys for passengers. We know from previous experience with roads as well as railways that maintenance backlogs are easy to build up and hard and expensive to get rid of.
“However, this isn't all about austerity - some of it is about waste and incompetence in Network Rail, which as they admit, has mismanaged several upgrade projects. Network Rail needs to get a grip and the regulator needs to help them do it."
People of Immingham - rejoice!
Those nice people at the RDG have promised you a significant uplift in services.
According to the FT today, reporting on the decline in coal traffic:
The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators, said there would be space for “potentially thousands” of extra passenger services every year.
707s to Grimsby? That'll do nicely.
This from the Brothers!
This from from Daddy Warbucks...
First MTR seem intriguingly reticent about the collateral damage from their new train bonanza for the South Western franchise.
Asked by the jackals of the railway press about the implications for SWT's existing fleets all they will confirm is that the Class 707s (Angel - £240 million investment) will definitely be replaced.
As for the expensively reconstructed Class 458/5s (Porterbrook £65 million) and currently-being-expensively-retractioned Class 455s (Porterbrook £40 million), the rest is silence - at least until after the standstill period.
Still Angel had the foresight to specify dual voltage for the Class 707s. And also now has the opportunity to spend even more millions on refurbishing and retractioning the 18 Plastic Pigs, AKA Class 442.
Our man who prefers letters to Class Numbers points out that under the Mk 3 Coach bodies of the 5WES is traction equipment from the legendary 4REPs which weighed 175 tonnes, had the power of a Class 55 Deltic and a notional maximum speed of 100 mile/h if someone was looking.
Let's hope whoever gets the contract to re-traction the Class 442s maintains this hooligan tradition. After all, they do hold the speed record on 750 Volt DC third rail.
New Railway Industry Association CEO Darren Caplan is making his mark.
According to both Railnews and Railway Gazette International RIA issued a statement yesterday on the back of the Article 50 activation:
"Brexit presents the industry with both challenges and opportunities’, said Chief Executive Darren Caplan. "The Railway Industry Association will seek to be specifically included in any Brexit agreement negotiated, ensuring UK railways sit alongside automotive and aerospace as one of the Department for Exiting the EU’s top transport sectors.
"Additionally, we will work with the UK government to maintain trade in as frictionless a manner as possible, for example on standards and tariffs; and we will seek to ensure our industry continues to have access to an adequate supply of skilled labour from the UK and around the world, regardless of the outcome of these negotiations."
Although perhaps a shame that you can't yet find it on the news section of the RIA website...
#Breaking CH2M, handed £170m deal to develop Phase 2b of HS2, pulls out of that section due to "protracted delays and ongoing speculation"— Press Association (@PA) March 29, 2017
Welcome to the world of HS2 Nuspeak!
Gone is the fuddy duddy old fashioned term "classic compatible'.
In comes the snappy and exciting "conventional-compatible"!
This from Hildegard of the Vinzgau...
This from Henry Hectare...
In the past Eye has been somewhat critical of a certain Mr Kipling's role in the procurement of new rolling stock.
The latest fleets for Thameslink, East Coast and Great Western were specified and procured by the DfT, often against the best advice of those who actually have to operate them, and not withstanding passenger (sorry - customer) fury about uncomfortable seating and the absence of wifi and sockets.
No matter!
Surely this could all have been solved by simple recourse to the wise words of the World's Greatest Living Transport Correspondent?
But what do we find when we turn to an epistle from Mystic Wolmar, penned for the pages of RAIL Magazine in 2004, as Virgin Trains launched its first "tilting" Red Revolution timetable:
"It is obvious that the Voyagers or Pendolinos must not be used as the model for new rolling stock for inter-city services and let us hope the lessons from their failings are learned. The HSTs are going to need replacing, probably by the end of the decade, and the same mistake of having modern trains that are less pleasant than the ones they are replacing must not be repeated...
"The sensible option would be for the SRA – or, rather, its replacement – to commission a new design for the trains and insist that they be used on the Great Western franchise where most sets are required and for any other similar routes. Why should a franchisee design trains when they are but temporary holders of a management contract, especially given that when things go wrong, we all know who foots the bill."
Wise words indeed. If only Mr Kipling and his legions in the DfT had listened to Woemar's sage advice! (Is this right? Ed)
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