First of all, apologies for a ‘senior moment’ in last month’s e-Preview. Of course I went to the Highgate Test Facility to talk to Tubelines about progress with the Northern line resignalling project. So why did I type M*tr*n*t?
Anyway, the astute PR people at TubeLines subscribe to e-Preview, so first thing on Monday I received a friendly phone call. Most embarrassing.
But when I have time I must check the subscribers list, now approaching 300, to see if any other company PR flacks have signed up to e-Preview. As a press officer myself in an earlier life, I would have appreciated the value of seeing trouble coming.
Train reliability – electrics excel but diesels disappoint
Super DMUs hit by engine problems
French option sinks Asfordby test facility
If it’s January, it must be the Informed Sources Annual Review of Fleet Reliability, based on the official figures produced by the Natioanl fleet Reliability Improvement Programme (NFRIP).
Train Operators and manufacturers often bandy around reliability figures for traction and rolling stock fleets, which often get quoted in the railway press. But for me the only figures that are worth anything are those produced by NFRIP. All fleets report to a standard format and the format includes incidents where no fault was found, which often get overlooked accidentally on purpose.
In charge of NFRIP is Rebeka Sellick, the Engineering Director of the Association of Train Operating Companies. You may have read an interview with Rebeka about reliability in another publication where she declined to release detailed performance figures, hinting only that the c2c Electrostars were the most reliable trains in Britain at slightly over 40,000 miles per casualty (MPC).
Suggestions that something a little more conrete was called for cut no ice with Rebeka. So you can imagine that the Informed Sources Annual Review, which reveals among other things that the c2c Class 357 fleet has a moving annual average 43,183 MPC for Accounting Period 7 (18 September-15 October) and a P7 figure of 48,250 MPC for the four weeks, does little for my popularity.
What annoys Rebeka and other engineers is that I rank the reliability figures for each category in order of merit. This is a no-no at NFRIP which is all about mutual support and sharing best practice.
Indeed one of the elder statesmen of the traction and rolling stock engineering profession made a friendly phone call in October to express concern that the Golden Spanners awards might be ‘trivialising’ the work of NFRIP. Sorry to disagree, but the Fourth Friday Club meeting in November where I made the goilden Spanners awards was a sell out.
This demonstrated that there are some very competitive engineers in the TOCs, ROSCOs and Manufacturers who take these new awards very seriously indeed. And would you believe that the TOCs would not allow Rebeka to speak at the event?
Anyway, Mr Editor Abbott has given me extra pages and I hope you’ll find the Reliability Review interesting reading. Some useful lessons emerge, we get some hard data on Electrostar versus Desiro (guess which is the most reliable), there’s a new Champagne Challenge for IC125s to go with the existing challenge for Pacer reliability, and some worrying signs of ageing among the BR era diesel multiple units.
Illustrations will include the presentation of the golden spanners, including Capt Deltic in his RAF Pattern cotton drill boiler suit presenting the award for most improved fleet.
As I mentioned last month, I went to
When technical troubles come they tend to come in batches and so the situation is more complex than it might seem. In addition to the engine problems, traction motors are also over-cooking in the tightly packed engine/transmission raft under the Class 22X . Shortly after I finished this part of Informed Sources a Class 221 caught fire down in the West Country – the source reportedly being a traction motor.
There’s also something on the problem of integrating a digitally controlled electric transmission with an analogue diesel engine, which may be making life harder for the engines under Class 22x compared with the Class 180s which have hydraulic drives. Although it isn’t a new phenomenon, I overlooked it in my enthusiasm for the Voyagers’ electric transmission
Finally there’s Network Rail chasing a French debutant from Valenciennes, who may or may not become fabulously endowed, while overlookinmg the honest charms of a lass from the Midlands. Since Alstom won’t have a use for the ex BR Research Old Dalby Test track, and the Pendolino base at Asfordby, it offered the facility to Network Rail.
But Network Rail wants a share of a proposed all-singing all-dancing test complex at Valenciennes which, subject to funding and no environmental objections, could be open in 2009. You can read exclusive details of what the French are proposing, so exclusive that a journalist chum in northern France knew nothing about it. Reader feedbacl should be interesting to to what is either a reasoned argument or total rant on why we should keep Old Dalby operational until we have our hands on both oiseux in the bush.
December was a bit short of visits but high on social events, On 6 December I was master of ceremonies again at the Railway Heritage Awards. For someone who operates at the bleeding edge of the privatised railway, it makes a pleasant change to relax in the world of restored signal boxes, refurbished stations and some heroic bridge re-engineering.
Guest of honour presenting the awards was Network Rail Chief Executive John Armitt who gave only a thin smile when I suggested that he owned more heritage signal boxes that anyone in Britain. And some of Network Rail’s modernised mechanical boxes did, indeed, win awards. Modernised that is as in running water and flushing toilets – not new interlockings.
Next day it was off to the Rail Freight Group annual lunch. I’d better not say who I sat between or talked too, but I took 24 pages of notes, fixed up a cracking freight article and got an exclusive from a pair of lawyers on Mersey Travel’s judicial review of the Government over the withdr
Then it was off to the National Express media thrash near Trafalgar Square. As I arrived the bells were ringing at St Martin’s in the Fields. ‘Is that to celebrate NatEx winning the Greater Western Franchise’ I asked one of the Directors? He didn’t seem to think so.
Which brings us to what will be the main topic in next month’s column – analysis of the three franchises which DfT has now let – Integrated Kent, Greater Western and Thameslinl/Great Northern.
If you thrilled to my analysis of the irrationally exuberant Sea Containers bid for InterCity East Coast you are going to really enjoy the subsidy profile for IKF.
DfT Rail has introduced a new obstacle for franchise analysts, well, Informed Sources. Where SRA used to release the subsidy/premium profile once I asked for it, DfT Rail says I have to wait until the unsuccessful bidders have been debriefed – which takes a week or so.
This means I should be working on First Group’s winning profiles for GW and TL/GN over the Christmas break. I confidently expect that they will generate gasps of astonishment at their boldness/optimism/cynicism.
Meanwhile bedtime reading has included the National Audit Office report on the SRA’s sacking of Connex from South Eastern. I thought it would be of historic interest only, but it is NAO at its best and, if you have the time, well worth reading for the light it throws on present issues.
Next on the reading list will be the ORR’s latest barrage in the 2008 Periodic Review. On 15 December ORR published its first estimate of what an efficient railway should cost, aka its ‘assessment of Network Rail’s revenue requirement’. That should get DfT Rail and the Treasury twitching.
So lots of money issues in the February column, plus, provisionally, something on Class 458 disability issues. Talking of which I have been invited to give a paper at a conference in May on disability regulations and trains. Clearly they want someone to brighten up the post-lunch ‘graveyard slot’.
Talks have started between Virgin Rail Group and DfT Rail over the future of Virgin West Coast. But no signs yet of any action on my Freedom of Information Act request, let alone an explanation of some anomalies in VWC subsidies. Does it matter? Well, it’s our money and we need clarity on how it’s being spent.
Which only leaves me to wish all subscribers a happy Christmas and a peaceful and rewarding New Year.
As usual feedback to Roger@Alycidon.com
Roger