GWML Electification

[jjb1970]

The H&SaW etc Act of 1974 was a brilliant piece of legislation, as was the Robens Report which preceded it. Unfortunately over the years subsequent regulatory amendments have tended to be much less good. That said I think H&S is blamed for a lot of managerial failings, if H&S is properly managed it does not have to tie a business up in red tape or prevent activities taking place. I've worked in safety critical industries such as a nuclear fuel plant, gas fuelled power plants and offshore oil and gas and in all of those industries the safe systems of work were very robust yet did not hinder work activities provided a certain degree of work planning and a reasonable understanding of what was to be done was there.

 

On NR, I know some of my opinions in this thread may seem anti-NR but actually they're grounded in exactly the reverse sentiment. I think NR was a major improvement over Railtrack and I do not want NR to be privatised. However, when I look at GWML electrification and some other programs it is terribly hard not to conclude that NR is not competent to manage major programs and that much of the funding which is supposed to be paying for rail improvement is just sinking into black holes of waste and inefficiency. Given that, if the current government does have a go at privatising NR or breaking it up then the question will be what reason is there really to object to such a proposal if NR is considered to be incapable of managing itself? Now to re-iterate, I do not advocate an assault on NR or privatising it, but as things look now they're leaving themselves wide open to the sort of accusations which will make another privatisation seem sensible to most of the public. And I do think that would be bad for the railway.

 

I accept this is not just about NR and that there are issues with other parts of the process and government policies, but it doesn't alter the fact that as far as most people are concerned it is NR's job to get these jobs done and therefore they should be getting on with things a lot more efficiently than they are.

[The Stationmaster]

At the moment somebody on NR is reportedly conducting an inquiry into an incident which occurred a few months back (not on Western Route).  The incident involved a derailment and the cause was obvious almost immediately after it occurred - and was a very simple failure to comply with a certain section of very long established Rules which have been in the book in one form or another for a very, very long time.  As I  understand it there was no dubiety about what happened and how - the cause was clear and responsibility rests with two people one of whom bears a significantly great amount than the other and who basically did something very stupid and, probably without thinking.

 

Under the 'old railway' the two people involved would have been disciplined for their failings and quite possibly the appropriate Rules might have been reviewed to ensure they are clear and concise.  No need for an Inquiry although obviously the two people involved would have been interviewed by a competent and experienced operations manager to establish exactly why things went wrong and why they failed to carry out the Rules.  The only suspect element in this case is that there is an error in a recent revision of the Rule Book (although in reality it is a very obvious error and is probably a misprint) and it should have been found and dealt with before the amendment was issued.  The fact that it wasn't (seemingly) sorted is equally not deserving of any sort of inquiry - it merely illustrates all too clearly the error of taking control of the Rule Book out of the hands of experienced people with an operational and Rules & Regs background and of not providing the sort of checking and subsequent rapid feedback that existed in BR days.

 

This I think shows up the lack of experience which exists in some parts of NR and which hardly surprises me in view of some of the contact I have had with various parts of their organisation in the past (plus some work i had done a bit further in the past for Railtrack for the simple reason they didn't have anyone with the knowledge to be able to do it).  If an organisation lacks these sort of skills at relatively low levels it hardly comes asa surprise to me that higher levels of the organisation are similarly bereft of knowledge or experience - otherwise they'd be making sure they had people in their organisation with such knowledge.  Alas 'procedures' or the various things JJB has mentioned do not necessarily substitute for experience and learning from ones more experienced peers - Railtrack has a lot to answer for in that respect as well.

[D1059]

Britain's nanny state is drowning in red tape as MPs pass yet more laws"

 

 

 

Yet, half the laws we have are not adequately enforced - the failure of which, causes more laws to be passed to try and make up for that fact

 

Never read Hansard - the level of ignorance about things being voted on by most politicians is staggering

[Joseph_Pestell]

I think these points are highlighting the'Daily Fail' paradox.

 

"Why oh why oh why was this terrible tragedy allowed to happen? Our spineless MPs must immediately pass legislation to prevent it happening again.

 

Britain's nanny state is drowning in red tape as MPs pass yet more laws"

 

David

Never mind the paradox, feel the sales.

[jjb1970]

Unfortunately I think there are certain things that can only be truly learned in real time and not replicated in books or a class room environment. I think that experience is a funny thing. I'm guessing I'm not the only one who's worked with people who have decades of experience but it is decades of experience of doing something rather badly at the same time as having known real whizz kids who were brilliant almost as soon as they came off a graduate scheme however on the whole you expect people to develop their competence and decision making capability with experience and exposure to a range of activities within an industry. I think a lot is down to self confidence and management culture, in the real world things do not tend to follow exactly pre-defined plans and it is normal that circumstance requires some deviation from what it saws in manuals and procedures. An experienced person with a lot of self confidence can be quite happy to accept responsibility for approving deviations and able to interpret rules in a way that allows them to be applied to real world conditions. People lacking in confidence, which is often but not always grounded in a lack of experience, tend to freeze in the headlights when faced with something that is not exactly as described in a procedure or plans. I have read a very good analogy that described the difference between military command and being chief of staff or another subordinate to a commander as being the difference between walking along a tight rope strung a few cm above your living room carpet and walking the same tight rope if strung across a canyon with a drop of a couple of hundred metres below. I think that analogy is applicable to industry where it can be a massive jump from assistant or under study to being the person responsible for decision making. Which is where corporate culture can be very important, if people are terrified of making mistakes in a shoot the messenger type of culture then the probability is that they will make mistakes, people need nurturing and support as they develop experience and that includes an indulgent attitude to failure. One of the arts of senior management is to allow this sense of indulgence towards peoples experiential learning whilst also preventing it having unacceptable consequences for the business and making sure that people do actually learn and not just keep making the same mistakes. I'm not employed by NR and really know very little about the railways as I'm just an enthusiast but a lot of the basic ideas and principles of management and capability development are common across complex processes and industries. Looking from the outside it does appear that NR are seriously lacking at mid to senior level. The sad thing is my impression is that their workforce on the whole seem to be both capable and committed and I feel they deserve better management than they currently have.

[JJGraphics]

The sad thing is my impression is that their workforce on the whole seem to be both capable and committed and I feel they deserve better management than they currently have.

 

Never was a truer word spoken.

 

I ran my own business successfully for over twenty years and in most of the companies that I worked with there were skilled, dedicated, hardworking staff, whereas in quite a few of the companies the "management" could not manage a drinking session in a brewery and relied heavily on the skill and experience of the staff to get them out of the brown stuff on a regular basis.

 

To be fair, there were some good managers in some of the companies and this was reflected in the commercial success of those companies and a happy working environment.

Edited January 5, 2016 by JJGraphics

[Northroader]

Taking the Stationmasters report on (post 1251) I should think juicing up Reading to Didcot looks do-able by Autumn. There has been quite a lot of heavy ironmongery appeared just in the last month on this stretch. The main substation at Foxhall, on Didcot power station and the National Grids doorstep, looks as if all the bits are in place, although there's no plastic eagle owl atop as the third rail folks like. Masts and cross-pieces quickly fizzle out to the West of here. I'd say well over half of the base tubes are in as far as Challow, using the same "dot and carry one" techniques we've enjoyed watching happen from Reading. Some around Uffington, then there's another cluster past Shrivenham to the Oxford road bridge. It's hard to tell how the Grove/ Wantage Road bridge is shaping, something must have happened in the last month, but quite what I couldn't say. Here in the fair city of Bassett we're looking forward to bridge works starting soon. The Network Rail official site gives a completion date of March 2017! Tell me I'm just a pessimistic old sod.

[Southernman46]

Looking from the outside it does appear that NR are seriously lacking at mid to senior level.

Yes the legacy of 1994-5 .................

[96701]

Yes the legacy of 1994-5 .................

And the move to MK..........

[m0rris]

And the move to MK..........

 

Yet to find a single person who has anything positive to say about that decision. By all accounts NR lost a serious amount of expertise when they gave everyone their movement orders, local knowledge nigh on wiped out in some areas as local managers chose to pursue other options/retirement.

 

On the good news front. I've had a few commutes now to assess NR's progress over Christmas and I don't think it is as bad as first feared. There is alot of evidence of piling in the Airport Jnc-Reading area, a significant number of masts went up and there's now a second stretch of OHLE strung up between Reading and Slough (IIRC Taplow area down relief). DID-RDG still has alot of stations work to be done but most of the gaps elsewhere have been closed and completing this section has got alot closer.

[96701]

Yet to find a single person who has anything positive to say about that decision. By all accounts NR lost a serious amount of expertise when they gave everyone their movement orders, local knowledge nigh on wiped out in some areas as local managers chose to pursue other options/retirement.

 

On the good news front. I've had a few commutes now to assess NR's progress over Christmas and I don't think it is as bad as first feared. There is alot of evidence of piling in the Airport Jnc-Reading area, a significant number of masts went up and there's now a second stretch of OHLE strung up between Reading and Slough (IIRC Taplow area down relief). DID-RDG still has alot of stations work to be done but most of the gaps elsewhere have been closed and completing this section has got alot closer.

The wires will get to Cardiff and they'll be live. Just a little later than first proposed. Maybe NR should get John Armitt back. After all, he got the Olympics in time and on budget.

[The Stationmaster]

Yet to find a single person who has anything positive to say about that decision. By all accounts NR lost a serious amount of expertise when they gave everyone their movement orders, local knowledge nigh on wiped out in some areas as local managers chose to pursue other options/retirement.

 

On the good news front. I've had a few commutes now to assess NR's progress over Christmas and I don't think it is as bad as first feared. There is alot of evidence of piling in the Airport Jnc-Reading area, a significant number of masts went up and there's now a second stretch of OHLE strung up between Reading and Slough (IIRC Taplow area down relief). DID-RDG still has alot of stations work to be done but most of the gaps elsewhere have been closed and completing this section has got alot closer.

Ah, but don't forget that east of Maidenhead is not the GWML scheme (apart from some beefing up of existing catenary east of Airport Jcn).  Maidenhead -Airport Jcn electrification work is Crossrail as I understand things. (BTW I reported the wiring east of Taplow last week as it was happening).

[RJS1977]

Just wondering - is it possible that the lack of progress west of Reading over Christmas is due to the weather? As I was away over Christmas I don't know how windy it was but since installing masts is probably a crane job, might the work have had to be cancelled/curtailed for safety reasons?

[Zomboid]

Just wondering - is it possible that the lack of progress west of Reading over Christmas is due to the weather? As I was away over Christmas I don't know how windy it was but since installing masts is probably a crane job, might the work have had to be cancelled/curtailed for safety reasons?

Whilst bad weather doesn't help, you can't plan a Christmas work scheme expecting constant sunshine. And the south east wasn't battered in the same way the north was.

Saying that, localised flooding and the like can make accessing specific locations difficult or impossible, so there may have been an impact.

[Captain Kernow]

Whilst bad weather doesn't help, you can't plan a Christmas work scheme expecting constant sunshine. 

Generally, that's correct. What will probably happen is that a plan of work will be produced, with contingencies added, in the event that the wind is too strong to permit the use of certain types of plant, such as cranes. There will also be a means of monitoring wind speed provided on site.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Captain Kernow

[The Stationmaster]

Just wondering - is it possible that the lack of progress west of Reading over Christmas is due to the weather? As I was away over Christmas I don't know how windy it was but since installing masts is probably a crane job, might the work have had to be cancelled/curtailed for safety reasons?

I wouldn't have thought so - some rain at times and a bit 'grotty' over all but no strong winds and certainly not the sort of winds that would be too strong for crane work.  After all the engineers were installing masts on the sides of the river bridge at Lower Basildon on Friday & Saturday and that was a lot more exposed to any wind than any of the sites where there are bases in position on which to erect masts anywhere between Reading and Moreton Cutting.

Edited January 7, 2016 by The Stationmaster

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

I've got to say, they have cracked over the Christmas Period!

 

I travelled between Reading and Swindon today and I would say there's not that many gaps between Reading and Didcot now, although I could only get a dark look as I managed to travel early morning and late afternoo!

 

A trip to Maidenhead on Saturday will show progress in the East, although the pictures on the Crossrail website show quite a bit of progress: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/major-crossrail-improvement-works-delivered-over-christmas-and-new-year

 

Simon

Edited January 7, 2016 by St. Simon

[Ron Ron Ron]

That's some serious ironmongery.......

 

http://74f85f59f39b887b696f-ab656259048fb93837ecc0ecbcf0c557.r23.cf3.rackcdn.com//assets/library/image/o/original/overhead%20power%20works%20near%20between%20maidenhead%20and%20slough_218136.jpg

 

 

.

[david.hill64]

That's some serious ironmongery.......

 

http://74f85f59f39b887b696f-ab656259048fb93837ecc0ecbcf0c557.r23.cf3.rackcdn.com//assets/library/image/o/original/overhead%20power%20works%20near%20between%20maidenhead%20and%20slough_218136.jpg

 

 

.

It looks like it has been designed to cope with typhoons and earthquakes. No wonder the locals are concerned at the 'visual intrusion'.

[Titan]

That looks like Taplow looking eastwards. The 'serious ironmongery' is in fact anchor portals. If you compare them to the equivalent Mk1 A-frame anchor portals the new structures are significantly smaller and more compact than what has gone previously. The structure nearest the camera is a lightweight two track cantilever which is more typical of the structures used on open route. They would be used in pairs on a four track railway rather than a portal structure across all four tracks. Unfortunately they are not very strong, and in the overlap beyond the anchor structures portals have to be used as the lightweight cantilevers are not always strong enough to support the four equipments (two per track in an overlap).

[Mike Storey]

According to NR, on the GW electrification project over Christmas and the new year, some 174 new masts were installed and 11,700 metres of OH wiring fitted.

 

According to some reports on this thread, that either didn't happen or it was far less than planned, or more than that should have been planned (although it is not entirely clear where those proposers could suggest where the extra resources would have been found). What is the truth, rather than conjecture?

 

I would also add, given many comments, that when NR were "doing it right" i.e. the previous 9 years, none of the Board team had much rail experience between them. People cite Robin Gisby as one who did, but he didn't. John Armitt is renown as the person who delivered the 2012 Olympics, but he had, some jobs before, been briefly CEO of Railtrack....and so on. The mid to senior levels of management were mostly ex BR people, often those who had left at privatisation into various contractors/consultancies or TOCs, and then come back into the fold. Many, like me, from those days will have retired by now, or be close to it. So "new" people are inevitable, but many good ones were coming up when I was there. The same complaints made about NR now were being made in BR post-sectorisation, where the engineers and operators widely felt they had been side-lined. I just feel some objectivity could be worth visiting here, however bad or good NR is being at present.

 

20,000 staff were out on site this time, compared to 11,000 last year, when two major handbacks went badly wrong. None went wrong this time. Let's get this into perspective.

[Southernman46]

John Armitt is renown as the person who delivered the 2012 Olympics, but he had, some jobs before, been briefly CEO of Railtrack....and so on

He was for almost 8 years which is an age in CEO terms, I believe that he was an enormous factor in turning the disaster of RT around to the relative success of NR.

 

I can vouch from personal experience that whilst that not being a career railwayman his ability to quickly understand the industry and lead the company were impressive to say the least. During my time with him during a day at Clapham Junction he admitted to being bitten by the railway bug and that was why he had not yet moved on. He was the first "Boss" that I actually felt led the company and made you feel genuinely inspired, especially when viewed against the snake-oil salesman that succeeded him.

 

He is one of those individuals who would do well leading any organisation industrial or military.

[The Stationmaster]

According to NR, on the GW electrification project over Christmas and the new year, some 174 new masts were installed and 11,700 metres of OH wiring fitted.

 

According to some reports on this thread, that either didn't happen or it was far less than planned, or more than that should have been planned (although it is not entirely clear where those proposers could suggest where the extra resources would have been found). What is the truth, rather than conjecture?

 

I would also add, given many comments, that when NR were "doing it right" i.e. the previous 9 years, none of the Board team had much rail experience between them. People cite Robin Gisby as one who did, but he didn't. John Armitt is renown as the person who delivered the 2012 Olympics, but he had, some jobs before, been briefly CEO of Railtrack....and so on. The mid to senior levels of management were mostly ex BR people, often those who had left at privatisation into various contractors/consultancies or TOCs, and then come back into the fold. Many, like me, from those days will have retired by now, or be close to it. So "new" people are inevitable, but many good ones were coming up when I was there. The same complaints made about NR now were being made in BR post-sectorisation, where the engineers and operators widely felt they had been side-lined. I just feel some objectivity could be worth visiting here, however bad or good NR is being at present.

 

20,000 staff were out on site this time, compared to 11,000 last year, when two major handbacks went badly wrong. None went wrong this time. Let's get this into perspective.

Those are interesting figures and I wonder where that all happened?  There was no sign of any of that between Reading and Didcot with the exception of a few masts between Scours Lane and Tilehurst which I think had actually all gone in before Christmas.  The only catenary which was installed - apart from alterations to existing catenary east of Hayes - was the section starting east of Taplow station and running to a point approximately one third of the distance between the site of Lent Rise yard and Burnham station (which is on the Crossrail area).  Clearly a lot of work on ohle upgrade has taken place east of Hayes recently with new structures in place and some of them already operational and carrying catenary - that is all essential work for Crossrail and judging by the new structures is also intended to upgrade existing wiring.

 

As I have said previously i suspect some of the structures at Didcot were probably erected over Christmas but there are still numbers of masts not installed between Tilehurst and Moreton Cutting with little apparent progress recently although register arms etc are being fitted where there is something to fit them to.  I can only report what I see and compare it with what I have seen preveiously and it is obvious that progress on the section between Reading and Didcot (which was supposed to go live in September 2015 on original plans) is slow and a major opportunity to do a lot of work appears not to have been exploited).  For example section east of Pangbourne was wired some months ago but it didn't include all four running lines with the Up Main definitely not done by a week ago today. 

 

It is of course quite feasible that masts were being installed east of Slough (where I have not been able to observe progress for some time) but again that is Crossrail contract area and of course equally work may well have been going on west of Didcot.  If NR are able to produce such detailed figures then they no doubt have the information available to say what was done where.

 

As for what should be done where and when there obviously has to be priorities - if the current priority is Crossrail work on the GWML rather than the GWML scheme itself then it would be simple to say so.  However what is going on in parts of that area is as shambolic as the situation west of Reading - for example great to wire one section east of Taplow but at this time the wiring could not be extended any further east because while many structures have register arms etc some in the 1.5 miles between Burnham and Farnham Road don't yet exist or are incomplete.  Thus once the structures are in the team adding the register arms and other fittings will have to go back, in yet another possession, to do the work they couldn't do first time round - having to do the same job twice is a waste of time and money (and of course the same applies with yet another possession or two to actually erect the missing structures).  And if the work is done in the same way as that east of Taplow it will take even longer as there is no site between Lent Rise and Slough yard where road-rail machines can access the railway so time to get to site will be greater.

 

I watched from passing trains the WCML being electrified and some of the ECML and it was a darned sight better organised than the messy approach we are seeing on the GWML - sorry but I judge by visible results and it's results which reflect on the ability of managers and the way work is organised.

[black and decker boy]

Knowing how things get spun, 11700m of wiring probably equates to under 4000m of plain line (assuming contact wire, top wire and return wire). It's still hardly a drop in the ocean but at least they are moving forward.

[Grovenor]

20,000 staff were out on site this time, compared to 11,000 last year, when two major handbacks went badly wrong. None went wrong this time. Let's get this into perspective.

That looks like the crux of the problem, "risk management" if the order went out to avoid 'overrunning' at any cost, the easy way was to 'underwork'.

Regards