It’s a bumper Informed Sources
this month and my thanks to the Editor for squeezing in even more words that
usual
Obviously the lead topic is the result of the Office of Rail Regulation’s investigation into the Christmas/New Year overruns. You can download the report of the investigation in full at http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/352.pdf
Having called a press conference to announce the findings of the Report and its decision to fine Network Rail £14 million, ORR found itself in the firing line. I asked why ORR hadn’t seen Rugby coming, while the National media reporters were more concerned with the £14 million fine and the need to punish Network Rail’s directors through there bonuses.
None of us got very convincing answers.
My interpretation of the Report is thatHowever
However good your planning, implementation depends on skills and experience on the ground. Time and again, the Report comes back to a lack of artisan and supervisor expertise and the absence of well trained teams used to working together.
Since I wrote the column, Network Rail has been sounding more optimistic about completing the WCRM works in time for the timetable change in December. This includes the introduction of the Virgin High Frequency (VHF) timetable, although Virgin decided some time back to run the existing service over Christmas and step up in January.
Access through the new layouts
for driver training, particularly for Virgin, has been the key issue. The proposed additional total possessions, from
In all the excitement other operators have tended to be overlooked. Cross Country needs the timetable change in December because that date is a main change point in the franchise. While Virgin could put back the VHF to May, for Cross Country putting back the timetable change would be ‘catastrophic’ according to MD Andy Cooper.
It wouldn’t go down well with ORR either, which has made meeting the December date a ‘reasonable requirement, leaving Network Rail facing another possible breach. And ORR has yet to be convinced that Network Rail can inspect and maintain the WCML within the reduced access time available within the new timetable.
And all this despite major outstanding work items on the WCRM being deferred until the next control period.
Just over a month to go until the bids for the Intercity Express Programme go in on 6 May. And everything is very quiet. Obviously, the remaining, or should that be ‘surviving’, two bidders are forbidden to talk to anyone and as is widely known I don’t talk to anyone, anyway.
But it looks as if whatever
bids DfT Rail gets will be substantially non-compliant. Even on the electric
IEP, which is regarded as marginally less bonkers than the diesel and ‘bi-mode’
versions, Informed Sources suggest that it will weigh what electric trains
usually weigh. For example a
Meanwhile, I have been having another tussle with DfT Rail, this time over ‘Appendix C’ to the Technical Specification which was sent to bidders last December. This was in response to the Express Rail Alliance (ERA) (Bombardier. Siemens et al) asking how the ability to run faster than 125mile/h would be valued.
Appendix C was meant to resolve this conundrum, but DfT got carried away and slipped in an invitation for bidders to price a 250km/h IEP option.
Obviously I asked for a copy of Appendix C to complete my set of IEP documentation and was told that this would not be possible: because the document was ‘commercially sensitive’. So I whacked in a Freedom of Information request and the long suffering Miriam came back with a deal.
Apparently DfT Rail thinks that if I had a copy it would affect commercial relationships between the bidders and their sub-contractors. But what about a copy on May 6 when the bids go in? Since it would take longer to process the FOI and the resulting challenges I agreed and all will be revealed in the June Column.
In a whimsical specification one of the strangest whims is the obsession
with ‘bi-mode’ trains able to run under the wires and self propelled. Many of us old-school engineers can’t see the
point of dragging a diesel power house to and fro between
Not so, according to DfT Rail, who pointed me to Bi-mode timings in the Invitation to Tender with the claim that the traction characteristics of an EMU, like the IEP, when supplied by a diesel ‘power house’ means that a ‘bi-mode IEP loses only 3 minutes to an IC125 between Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
Now I freely admit that I can’t get my head round this concept, and for the benefit of technical readers I try to explain why this seems improbable. For example, on the 1 in 70 climb to Drummochter the balancing speeds, for the IC125 would be 70mile/h compared with 44mile/h for a bi-mode IEP.
Similarly an eight car bi-mode
IEP is supposed to be faster than a Voyager between
All very counter-intuitive. But perhaps what with all the regulatory nonsense I have to cover I haven’t been keeping up with developments in traction technology and the laws of physics. We shall see.
In February
Of course, Network Rail would love
to see
Under the facilitation agreement, Network Rail will provide and operate a
test vehicle and make available a
section of infrastructure.
Having covered the trials and tribulations of smart cards in the railway industry at some length over the past couple of years I can now bring you some encouraging news A specialist conference on the arcane subject of rail revenue management and pricing concluded with a demonstration by Jeremy Acklam, Business Development Director of TheTrainline of Trainline Smart.
Using his laptop Jeremy logged onto Trainline Smart’s pilot website and in just 2min 57 sec, including talking us through the process and answering the odd question, bought a ticket, paid for it and downloaded it onto an ITSO compliant smartcard.
It was the most convincing ITSO application yet.
TheTrainline is in talks with a number of train operators about Trainline Smart with a pilot scheme starting later this year.
Of course, its all very well having a smartcard ticket for main line travel, but how do you use it? How can it be checked on the train, for example.
And here comes the really clever bit. TheTrainline has commissioned a hand held card reader with which train managers and ticket inspectors will be able to read tickets and also ‘clip’ the smartcard. All clever stuff which provides a way to get ITSO compliant smart cards onto the main line early, while ATOC and TfL are still arguing about Oyster implementation for next year.
It’s been all go since the
last e-Preview. The feature article on
Network Rail’s plans for ‘Modular everything’ had to be written; it appears in
the April issue. There was also the
Hitachi Exhibition to attend and the week after that I met the lock-nut experts
and then zipped up to
The week of 3 March I started writing this month’s column early, taking time off to go to the fares conference. An early start on the column was necessary because the next week was included a day out at Infrarail. Last week I went to IMechE Railway Division’s conference on intelligent trains, more of which anon.
Phew! Now there are a couple of quiet weeks before I’m into a hectic April which includes a trip to Manchester to catch up with Pendolino maintenance, chairing a session on electrification at the Railway forum conference, a judges’ meeting for an IRO competition, presenting a paper on new trains for Thameslink and Crossrail at a conference organised by Landor on 23 April and at the end of that week the Fourth Friday Club and the IRSE Presidential Address.
All this means I miss the naming of an IC125 power car after one of my heroes Terry Miller, a key figure in the development of the train. Congratulations to East Midlands Trains and Porterbrook for honouring a great engineer.
Meanwhile e–Preview is going from strength to strength. New subscriptions have been pouring in since Christmas. I am sure this must be down to recommendations by subscribers because I haven’t had a chance to promote my web activities in the column for months now. So thanks for your support and please feel free to forward your copy to friends and colleagues.
Oops! Must stop, 1900 words is approaching. Now you know how the editor feels!
Roger