Network Rail upgrade delayed by government

[pete_mcfarlane]

Branson calling (again) for NR to be broken up and for TOCs to maintain the track: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33281468

 

I'm wondering what Virgin maintained infrastructure would be like. Probably not very good, but they'd be sure to have their logo on all of the 15mph temporary speed restriction signs. 

[Edwin_m]

I'm wondering what Virgin maintained infrastructure would be like. Probably not very good, but they'd be sure to have their logo on all of the 15mph temporary speed restriction signs. 

No, the 15mph signs would be logo-free.  They'd have their logo on the T-boards. 

[Edwin_m]

As you'll see from my signature, I am a trainee signalling designer for Network Rail, I am one of 12 take on in September 2014, with several taken on the year before (I can't remember the exact number), there will be 2 new trainee's per design office in Network Rail per year for the next few years, plus an equal number of testing and commissioing engineer trainee's. I myself will also be trained in basic testing and commissioning later in the summer.

 

There is equal investment in trainee track and (I believe) OLE design engineers.

 

I hope that this clears up that Network Rail are serious about getting young design engineers on board and making a difference to these projects, I myself have done design work on several large (and a couple of small) projects in  the few months I have been in SDG.

 

Simon

That's good to know, and best wishes with your career on the railway.  But those numbers are fairly small compared to the number who will be working on a particular scheme, and to the number retiring each year.  A big part of the problem will also be the gaps in investment in the early privatisation era - probably 10 years for signalling and getting on for 20 for OLE.  Many of the people with senior roles in major schemes will disappear during that period, either due to reaching retirement age or finding work in other sectors or overseas.  So the risk is that those who are running the schemes today are less experienced than they would have been in past years, not through any fault of their own, so less able to foresee the pitfalls.  They say that history repeats itself once the people who remember last time round have retired. 

 

Another issue is that NR relies much more heavily than BR did on the private sector for enhancements, despite taking some activities back in house.  Private companies had a similar gap in UK recruitment for the same reasons.  They do and did have the opportunity to find work in other countries, but the flipside of that is that if work picks up too quickly they can't necessarily break their existing contracts elsewhere to bring people back to the UK.  Those who have had their fingers burnt by previous over-recruiting to meet UK demand that doesn't exist will be particularly reluctant to get involved here again when there are so many opportunities elsewhere (check out how many miles of metro the Saudis are building at present). 

[The Stationmaster]

I'm wondering what Virgin maintained infrastructure would be like. Probably not very good, but they'd be sure to have their logo on all of the 15mph temporary speed restriction signs. 

 

No, the 15mph signs would be logo-free.  They'd have their logo on the T-boards. 

The very thought of that bloke getting his hands on the infrastructure frightens me more than the idea of Putin with his hand on a nuclear trigger.  Just imagine a renewals planning meeting -

 

Local civil engineer  - we need to renew 2 mile on the Down Slow and 1mile on the Up Slow and 3 miles on the Up Fast can be deferred and kept going for renewal next year.

Beardie Rep - Do our trains run on whatever the Down Slow and the Up Slow are, surely our trains are fast?

Local civil engineer - Your trains normally run on the Fast Lines. 

Beardie rep - Ah well as we're in charge now we won't do any work on the Slow Lines and you can relay the Fast Lines this year.

Increasingly frustrated civil engineer - That means I shall have to put some severe speed restrictions on the Slow Lines

Beardie rep - Well as long as you relay the Fast Lines that won't be a problem for us.

Exceedingly frustrated civil engineer - OK, and your trains will have to run on the Slow Lines while the work is taking place on the Fast Lines

Beardie rep - Why? Aren't our trains fast trains?

 

Now if you don't believe that I can recall a meeting around 20 years ago discussing the commercial opportunities for a particular sort of new train where there was doubts if it was or wasn't going to serve the right places.  The then newly 'implanted' Beardie rep suggested that it would be a good idea to run the trains from Bristol as he was sure it would be a good market.  Someone pointed out that the trains concerned were electric trains - the Beardie rep asked if that was important?

 

Get that bunch influencing civil engineering maintenance decisions - someone is either incredibly stupid or equally ignorant.

[jamie92208]

(My Bold)

 

Hi,

 

As you'll see from my signature, I am a trainee signalling designer for Network Rail, I am one of 12 take on in September 2014, with several taken on the year before (I can't remember the exact number), there will be 2 new trainee's per design office in Network Rail per year for the next few years, plus an equal number of testing and commissioing engineer trainee's. I myself will also be trained in basic testing and commissioning later in the summer.

 

There is equal investment in trainee track and (I believe) OLE design engineers.

 

I hope that this clears up that Network Rail are serious about getting young design engineers on board and making a difference to these projects, I myself have done design work on several large (and a couple of small) projects in  the few months I have been in SDG.

 

Simon

Simon,  I am very glad to hear that this is happening.  I do hope that those figures continue and perhaps grow over the coming years.  Training in such disciplines must be much like those for medicine where you are talking of maybe 15 years before a consultant position is reached.  It's good news, thanks for telling us.

 

Jamie.

[Edwin_m]

Sorry but I don't buy it. There HAS been electrification work going on throughout the '90's and 2000's - Leeds First completion, ECML strengthening schemes, a number of new schemes in Scotland, North London Line expansion, GE rolling replacement of Mark 1 by Mark 3b, Heathrow Express and CTRL and a number of infill schemes. None of these are on the scale of the current schemes, granted, but the expertise and experience necessary to plan them is there, if not the engineering staff to plan the detail and get the work done - I well understand that shortage. We had the same shortages when doing the ECML and Leeds First, and had to bring back people from retirement to get OLE work back on programme for the Olympics. We have never had enough sparkys.

 

I worked with some seriously good project managers and directors, both specialist and multi-disciplined, throughout my time on the railways. The key problem was always (I can't really think of an exception) signalling, especially new control systems, integration and immunisation. Maybe the French got it right, when, instead of trying to invent new systems and kit, they just kept building the same thing over and over again for their LGV's and their classic route upgrades, with just incremental improvements each time. They got into trouble only really where they had to do something new or different. They may now have some of the least technically advanced lines in Europe, and are appallingly inefficient and can't run or maintain properly what they've got for toffee, but at least they did build them.

Interesting post, going rather against the grain of several including the one I've just posted above. 

 

I'd suggest that most of those OLE schemes have been pretty small and none except the Scottish schemes has involved installation of large numbers of new structures, which appears to be what is going wrong on the GWML.  As per my post further back, I think the people who did the earlier schemes in Scotland are still there working on EGIP and therefore not available to help out elsewhere. 

 

I agree signalling is always a problem, partly because the way it goes together and its impact on everything else are so counter-intuitive.  My personal theory is that engineers from other disciplines can understand civil engineering to a degree because it is there to be seen, but some civil engineers in charge of multi-disciplinary projects struggle with the intangible systems issues.  Civils may represent most of the costs but railway systems (and the slightly different discipline of systems engineering) represent most of the risk. 

[jamie92208]

Yes, the per capita figures look terrible, but they do not represent the real issue: London is growing, massively fast, adding population at such a rate that it is the equivalent of adding on a new big city every few years. The other English cities are not growing at anywhere near the same pace and, in absolute numbers, for most of them the growth is minuscule (a few thousands, to London's hundreds of thousands).

 

We know that London's transport network is already operating at or very near capacity. So the comparison that needs to be done between London and the rest is investment per head of increased population.

 

If you did what was implied by your post - had the same per capita investment in every city, irrespective of growth or loss of population - the English cities other than London would not be able to fit in all the transport infrastructure they would have to build, and nor would there be enough people to ride on it.

 

And no, I don't live in London.

 

Paul

Hi Paul,  I wasn't arguing that we should all be equal and I am aware of the many reasons for the massive investment in London's infrastructure.   However all I would ask would be a somewhat more equal share.   The whole idea behind the northern Powerhouse is to create a large city so that the economic imbalance can be corrected.  This would be kickstarted by infrastructure improvements.

 

Jamie

[synthnut]

...I totally fail to see how fragmenting NR into regions would help. I know BR had regions, but BR was still the umbrella and its various parts too. It seems that there's already enough communication issues with central government (cough)

I know large organisations can be unweildy, but surley a single body here makes sense, or is it just me?

Perhaps someone missunderstood the phrase "divide and conquer" or maybe Mr Branson is planning to do just this to NR...?

 

More hmmmm

TTFN

Ben

[APOLLO]

Well at least us Wiganers have our nice shiny new, refurbished 4 car EMU's. to go to Liverpool on.

 

The poor sods across in Leeds will get the new refurbished ex London Underground trains fitted with multiple bus engines soon. Bet they will be nice. Guy behind this little project is an ex BR man who has made millions out of the privatisation of BR, and will no doubt make much more out of this deal. Well, that's capitalism I suppose.

 

Bad news all round today though, Tunisia, France & Kuwait. I think the Government will have something a lot more serious than delaying electrifying our railways to think about in the coming months.

 

Brit15

[4630]

If anyone fancies a laugh at the standard of the media reporting about this take a look at the map in The Times today of the Northwest and Transpennine routes and spot the errors - particularly what has been labelled 'Existing electrified track'.

[kenw]

What hasn't been mentioned so far is where does this this leave rail freight? The MML scheme also formed the core of the 'Electric Spine' scheme from Southampton up to the midlands.

 

The MML and TP schemes are 'just postponed'?

Hmm, remember the ECML electrification was 'postponed' around 1960....

30 years later!!!

[kenw]

They are! - but training takes time and I don't think those in charge of planning the schemes realised just quite how few OHLE people there were out there and as such just how much training would have to be given to make up the numbers.

 

They should've know, as "those in charge" have been running down the OHL departments for the last 20 years.

 

I was involved with the aftermath of an OHL incident at New Year, once the extent of the incident was known, it took around four hours to get an OHL crew on site

[jjb1970]

I think there are two questions with regards the skill shortages in the UK, how did we get here and how do we get out of it. The first one is interesting but we are where we are and the more important question is correcting the situation. And that takes time and money, for a skilled craftsperson, technician or engineer the time scales are not that different. Three to four years as an apprentice or student getting initial qualifications followed by training and development in entry level roles to build experience and expertise. And a lot of the knowledge people develop after leaving training and/or education can only really be learnt in real time, ie. it is a protracted process. And there are not unlimited training places, college places, instructors and lecturers meaning even if you had the funding to commence a huge training program the resources wouldn't be there to deliver it. Most good companies do have training schemes, graduate programs etc but they are seldom adequate to cover anticipated needs and there can be a significant attrition rate as people are tempted by other offers. That is another aspect lost at times, to retain people for the years necessary for them to develop the expertise to fill more senior roles employers have to provide a reason for people to stay.

[APOLLO]

There is a rumour going around (and I stress a rumour) that Balfour Beatty are about to pull out of the NW electrification imminently.

 

If so, an important team will be disbanded and dispersed. Difficult / impossible to get such a team together again when they have all gone different ways / industries.

 

Brit15

[trisonic]

I'm not certain but there is some political dynamite in the per capita figures.  IIRC for London it is over £1k but below £2 in the Newcastle area with Manchester better than West Yorks.

 

Jamie

So 8,417,000 x 1,000 Sterling would be over 8B Sterling in rail  investment in Greater London. Give over....

 

I’d like to see everyone from around the country try commuting into London for just one week, any week.

 

Best, Pete.

[JeffP]

I do wonder how many of the improvement projects will then get quietly forgotten about ?

 

Even in the age of privatisation, governments (of all colours) cannot stop themselves dabbling with the railways - to their detriment

Dabbling with everything, railways, education, policing, sport, even.

[Bon Accord]

So 8,417,000 x 1,000 Sterling would be over 8B Sterling in rail  investment in Greater London. Give over....

 

I’d like to see everyone from around the country try commuting into London for just one week, any week.

 

Best, Pete.

 

Give over? Crossrail alone is costed at near £15 billion!

[Titan]

There is a rumour going around (and I stress a rumour) that Balfour Beatty are about to pull out of the NW electrification imminently.

 

If so, an important team will be disbanded and dispersed. Difficult / impossible to get such a team together again when they have all gone different ways / industries.

 

Brit15

 

 

Not really, a lot of engineers are contractors, if any get laid off they could well go to whoever picks up NW and just continue where they left off (and probably at a premium too!). And there is still plenty of work to do on GWML to keep the remainder busy...

[Edwin_m]

What hasn't been mentioned so far is where does this this leave rail freight? The MML scheme also formed the core of the 'Electric Spine' scheme from Southampton up to the midlands.

 

The MML and TP schemes are 'just postponed'?

Hmm, remember the ECML electrification was 'postponed' around 1960....

30 years later!!!

The Electric Spine was and is a political pipe-dream, or to put it more kindly the first stage of a long-term project which would require several other things before realising much benefit for freight.  So its loss isn't a tragedy in the short term, though it would be unfortunate if it disappeared off into the distant future. 

 

There are no major intermodal freight terminals on the Spine other than Southampton, and with no links to other electrified routes the section north of Bletchley is effectively a dead-end with no reason for any electric freight train to venture up it.  Which is probably just as well as the double-track parts of the MML have significant capacity issues.  To make a serious difference for freight it would require electrification from Sheffield through to the ECML and/or the terminals in the Wakefield/Leeds area, or new terminals in the East Midlands.  Also electrification of the Erewash Valley which is the primary freight route from the East Midlands to South Yorkshire, and possibly also from Corby to Syston to avoid the double-track section through Market Harborough. 

 

So whatever happens to MML electrification will make little difference to freight, at least in the short term.  Similarly Reading-Basingstoke, Oxford-Bedford and Oxford-Leamington only benefit freight if the DC-AC conversion to Southampton also happens.  In the current position I'm certain the conversion will also be deferred, as it is more risky than a standard electrification and has the potential to soak up disproportionately more specialist resources and cash. 

[Ravenser]

With serious investment in revamped 73s, surely there's a case for quietly dropping DC/AC conversion of the middle bit of the Waterloo-Weymouth route, and simply electrifying Basingstoke-Reading as third rail? As Freightliners via Oxford have to run round at Reading, an engine change from 73 to 66 at Reading should not be too much of a problem?

 

Money saved and no OLE engineers required....

[Mike Storey]

Heathrow Express eletctrification works (I believe including detail design) was carried by by a French company although I'm fairly sure the basic structure design for masts etc wasn't in their hands.  The UK electrification people I met at one CTRL meeting (when I was working for a signal engineering company) were living in a time warp and clearly hadn't got a clue about the design (it was in respect of neutral sections in that particular instance, they kept rattling on about the position of the magnets  ) so I don't know what they did design for that scheme?

 

But was that for the interface works on phase 1 Mike? There were major problems deciding who led on that at the beginning.

[Mike Storey]

Interesting post, going rather against the grain of several including the one I've just posted above. 

 

I'd suggest that most of those OLE schemes have been pretty small and none except the Scottish schemes has involved installation of large numbers of new structures, which appears to be what is going wrong on the GWML.  As per my post further back, I think the people who did the earlier schemes in Scotland are still there working on EGIP and therefore not available to help out elsewhere. 

 

I agree signalling is always a problem, partly because the way it goes together and its impact on everything else are so counter-intuitive.  My personal theory is that engineers from other disciplines can understand civil engineering to a degree because it is there to be seen, but some civil engineers in charge of multi-disciplinary projects struggle with the intangible systems issues.  Civils may represent most of the costs but railway systems (and the slightly different discipline of systems engineering) represent most of the risk. 

 

I agree with most of what you say, but the schemes that have been done are not small, just not as big. Take the rolling GE OLE upgrade - IIRC 1.5k new masts/spans needed eventually! 

[RANGERS]

Given that the Govt seem sympathetic towards TfLs desire to control as much of the network which not only serves the local transport needs of the Capital, but also the wider network on which it relies, how long before the TfL area extends to the South Coast, Norwich/ Kings Lynn, Peterborough, Rugby (maybe further), Reading, Banbury and Basingstoke?

 

London relies heavily on a reliable commuter Network and plans to extend Oyster this far are already on the cards so maybe Sir Peter's appointment is a precursor to TfL taking an even greater degree of control over the National network? NSE may be dead but the prospect of a rebirth could be closer than ever

[The Stationmaster]

But was that for the interface works on phase 1 Mike? There were major problems deciding who led on that at the beginning.

It all got into quite a tangle Mike.  My main dealings with them were in regard to St Pancras SPAD Risk Assessment where we had some concern about Driver workload at a particular neutral section approaching a signal (and at a change from cab to lineside signalling) and these two characters were the folk sent along when we asked for electrification experts from the CTRL scheme.  After a little bit of initial confusion it became very obvious that they hadn't got the first idea about how a neutral section would be worked or indeed why one was shown to be where it was on the drawing.  The drawing situation was solved by someone else when he found out that the neutral section had in any case been moved for other design reasons, which resolved our concern.

 

However we (several of us - not the entire meeting) were surprised that the two 'electrification engineers' didn't seem to have the first idea about the system of electrification which was being used on CTRL even at the most basic level, they assumed that neutral sections would be worked on the BR principle and didn't seem to have the first idea about how they were dealt with on an LGV or CTRL.

I agree with most of what you say, but the schemes that have been done are not small, just not as big. Take the rolling GE OLE upgrade - IIRC 1.5k new masts/spans needed eventually! 

But a lot of the GE renewal/upgrade work - at least the physical work - seems to be going on in parallel with major installation work elsewhere, hence further demand on technical resources.

[Fat Controller]

With serious investment in revamped 73s, surely there's a case for quietly dropping DC/AC conversion of the middle bit of the Waterloo-Weymouth route, and simply electrifying Basingstoke-Reading as third rail? As Freightliners via Oxford have to run round at Reading, an engine change from 73 to 66 at Reading should not be too much of a problem?

 

Money saved and no OLE engineers required....

I don't think Freightliners from Southampton to the Midlands, via Oxford, have to run round at Reading; they use Reading West Curve and then go under the Up and Down Mains via a new fly-over/dive-under. The West Curve already had masts erected when I went past last weekend.