Great Western Coffee Shop

Rail regulator to investigate rail work delay chaos

The Office of Rail Regulation is to launch an investigation into major disruption to passengers caused by overrunning engineering work in London.

King's Cross station has remained closed, with travellers told to use Finsbury Park instead. Following "chaotic scenes" at Finsbury Park, passengers faced long queues to get on the platforms for a time.

Network Rail managing director Robin Gisby apologised, saying: "We've let a lot of people down today."

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin is demanding an explanation from Network Rail, which is responsible for the UK's train network.

Engineering work delays also mean there are no services between London Paddington and Reading. First Great Western is advising Paddington passengers to use alternative routes with South West Trains and Chiltern Trains and has offered refunds to travellers who choose not to travel on Saturday.

The work between King's Cross and Finsbury Park is part of a ^200m Christmas investment programme, Network Rail said.

Mr Gisby told BBC News: "We've let a lot of people down today I'm afraid, and I can only apologise for that. I've been out and about and have witnessed just the impact that our engineering work has had on passengers at Paddington and King's Cross."

He said Network Rail had run about 10,000 trains and had tried to run a "reasonable service" on top of the "necessary" engineering works. "But unfortunately some signalling problems at Paddington have gone badly wrong until early this afternoon, and we had some machinery break down on Christmas Day into Boxing Day, to the north of Kings Cross," he said.

A decision was taken on the afternoon of 26 December to put alternative arrangements in place and make an announcement to passengers, he said. "I'd much rather do that and make the call, than hope it all came right," he said. He added Network Rail was doing all it could "not to repeat the dreadful disruption caused today".

Previous investigations by the Office of Rail Regulation have led to multi-million pound fines. A spokesman for the regulator said: "The immediate priority is for Network Rail to ensure disrupted parts of the railways are back up and running again for passengers as soon as possible. Network Rail, working with the rest of the industry, must learn lessons and prevent problems like this happening again."

The rail operator, East Coast Trains, apologised for the disruption and said tickets would be valid on Sunday services. Its spokesperson said: "Passengers travelling to and from London King's Cross are advised to travel on another day if at all possible."

Finsbury Park station was closed for safety reasons for an hour from 11:00 GMT as "significant crowds" had been gathering on the platforms.

After the delays at Finsbury Park, East Coast said its "strong advice" to passengers was to defer travel to another date. Saturday's tickets will be valid on Sunday and Monday.

For passengers who travel East Coast said it was operating a service every 30 minutes from Finsbury Park - all trains run to Peterborough, then continue either to Leeds, Newcastle or Edinburgh.

Great Northern, which also uses King's Cross also advised passengers not to travel on its services on Saturday until further notice.

West Coast Main Line services are also not running between London Euston and Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire until 29 December, due to engineering works.

Transport Secretary Mr McLoughlin said: "The situation on the railways this weekend has been totally unacceptable. Passengers must be able to trust that vital engineering works on the rail network will be completed on time. I will be asking Network Rail to set out what went wrong and how they can learn lessons, but its priority must be to get services running into Kings Cross as well as Paddington."

Labour, meanwhile, accused the government of allowing almost the entire rail network to be shut down on Boxing Day.

Shadow transport secretary Michael Dugher said: "Now we see this further unacceptable disruption, just as people try and get home after Christmas."

David Sidebottom, passenger director at the watchdog Passenger Focus, said: "Investment in maintenance and improvement is necessary, and we passengers understand that. We will be looking to see that operators and Network Rail are doing all in their power to alert passengers, to help them make alternative arrangements and to make it easy for them to claim refunds or compensation."

A Network Rail spokesman said the work was "a small part of a massive amount of engineering investment taking place over Christmas". He said 4.5 million passengers use the railways on average every day, compared with two million a day over the Christmas and New Year holiday. About 300 projects are being undertaken over the holidays across 2,000 sites up and down the country.

National Rail said a reduced service to and from London King's Cross was expected to operate on Sunday, but journeys could be retimed and take longer than expected. Trains will leave King's Cross up to 20 minutes earlier than normal, resuming their usual stopping times from Peterborough. Services to King's Cross will arrive up to 40 minutes later than normal. Other services will start or end at Doncaster, Newark North Gate, Peterborough or Stevenage.

Network Rail must sack management over Christmas disruptions ^ Tory MP

Sir Nicholas Soames criticises rail leadership for decisions connected to chaos of King^s Cross engineering works and other services

Sir Nicholas Soames, the senior Conservative backbencher, has called for sackings at Network Rail, claiming there had been a fundamental breakdown in the management and leadership of Britain^s railway industry.

Soames, an MP for Mid Sussex, the heart of the commuter belt, said he was horrified by the travesty of the railway industry^s performance over Christmas, adding he was sure the transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, felt a similar sense of outrage.

Referring to the passenger chaos over the weekend caused by planned engineering works north of King^s Cross station over-running, he said: ^This is a problem for management and leadership ^ no other commercial organisation would set about this problem without a very clear idea of how they were going to do it, how long it would take, what it was they would use and what would be the finish time. Now they have failed on every single count and I understand that they even got the wrong piece of equipment to the line north of King^s Cross and then the replacement that was sent was wrong.

^Now whoever ordered that needs to be dismissed from service immediately ^ that is just a fundamental breakdown of management and leadership.^

Soames was speaking on London^s LBC Radio as commuters faced further disruption on Sunday, albeit less severe than the previous two days. Services out of Paddington were still disrupted, including Great Western, Heathrow Connect and Heathrow Express.

Services to King.s Cross were reopened on Sunday morning. Robin Gisby, Network Rail managing director, network operations, said on Sunday: ^King^s Cross has reopened this morning following completion of yesterday^s late-running work.^

He added: ^I would like to sincerely apologise for the upset and upheaval passengers suffered yesterday as our engineers struggled to complete an essential improvement project that had been months in planning.

^The advertised Sunday timetable for King^s Cross will run today as train operators work to get people home who we^re unable to travel yesterday.

^We now move our focus to completing the handful of other projects still under way without further impact on passengers. We will also begin our investigation into what went wrong with the work at Holloway [north of King^s Cross] and the planning that went into this project.^

Soames accepted railways were not in good shape and do need a lot of attention but he said the work needed to be done in an orderly way. He insisted the railway industry employs ^brilliant engineers but the leadership and management failed to overcome the problems and that is completely and utterly unacceptable. The whole railway industry needs to look at itself.^

He pointed out there had been long-term staffing problems at London Bridge station with a lack of drivers. ^Can you imagine British Airways saying, ^we cannot fly these aeroplanes because we have got no pilot^, so why cannot the railways have enough drivers?^

Network Rail faces probe over Christmas travel chaos

Network Rail came in for heavy criticism over the Christmas train travel chaos, with Britain^s rail watchdog launching an official investigation into the disruption.

The company apologised for the disruption, which cancelled all services out of London^s King^s Cross station on Saturday, delayed services at Paddington and caused two-hour waits at nearby Finsbury Park, which was also closed temporarily because of overcrowding.

The closures were caused by over-running engineering works on the east coast mainline into London. Patrick McLoughlin, transport secretary, called the disruption ^unacceptable^.

But Labour tried to pin the blame on the government, saying it was the decision to allow most of the rail network to close on Boxing Day that lay behind the chaos.

Although services were getting back to normal on Sunday, there were still delays and cancellations at London stations.

The Office of Rail Regulation said it would open a formal probe into why the maintenance work had not been completed in time, as well as the quality of information provided to passengers and any compensation owed. ^Network Rail, working with the rest of the industry, must learn lessons and prevent problems like this happening again,^ said an ORR spokesman.

^ORR is investigating over-running works. We will also be reviewing the standard of passenger information during disruptions ^ with a focus on whether passengers have been adequately informed to make alternative arrangements to their journeys or claim compensation.^

Mr McLoughlin said passengers ^must be able to trust that vital engineering works on the rail network will be completed on time. [They] deserve no less.^

He added: ^I will be asking Network Rail to set out what went wrong and how they can learn lessons, but its priority must be to get services running into King^s Cross as well as Paddington.^

Labour accused Mr McLoughlin of passing the buck by blaming Network Rail. Michael Dugher, shadow transport secretary, urged ministers to ^get a grip^.

^Ministers are responsible for piling misery on top of misery for those who have to rely on our railway,^ he said. ^It was the government that allowed almost the entire rail network to be shut down during Boxing Day, one of the busiest bank holidays of the year. Now we see this further unacceptable disruption, just as people try and get home after Christmas and at a time when many of our roads have experienced severe problems because of the bad weather.^

Forecasters were warning of temperatures below freezing all over the country on Sunday night, with widespread night frosts and freezing fog patches expected until the middle of the week.

Temperatures are expected to fall to as low as minus 10 Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) overnight, the coldest it has been all year, 24 hours after snowfall affected travellers in parts of northern England, Scotland and the Midlands. With rain expected to clear much of the snow, the transport trouble may switch from rail to the roads, with the Met Office warning motorists to be aware of ice on the roads in all parts of the UK.

Network Rail said the work was part of a ^200m Christmas investment programme, with most railways expected to return to normal on January 5. It is one of 300 projects being undertaken over the holidays at 2,000 sites by 11,000 engineers.

Network Rail, which controls 2,500 stations as well as Britain^s railway tracks, tunnels, bridges and level crossings, has received repeated criticism for its dismal performance record. Earlier this month Richard Price, chief executive of the ORR, sent a stern letter to the infrastructure operator warning that every element of the business had deteriorated, including punctuality, service reliability and track and signal maintenance.

Network Rail is planning to invest ^35bn in the five years to 2019. About ^12.5bn will be spent on improvements including new and upgraded stations, such as London Bridge, electrification and platform lengthening, while a third will be spent on track renewals and a third on running the railways.

But the ORR said it was repeatedly missing milestones for the delivery of improvements, putting the company^s credibility as an infrastructure manager at risk.

Robin Gisby, managing director of network operations at Network Rail, said: ^The advertised Sunday timetable for King^s Cross will run today as train operators work to get people home who were unable to travel yesterday. We now move our focus to completing the handful of other projects still under way without further impact on passengers. We will also begin our investigation into what went wrong with the work at Holloway [north of King^s Cross] and the planning that went into this project.^

The TSSA rail union called on the government to scrap the compensation scheme for rail companies, which saw them paid ^172m by Network Rail for late trains while passengers only received ^10m. ^It is high time for Patrick McLoughlin to act on the scheme which is rigged in favour of the rail firms against the interests of the passengers,^ it said. ^They get compensation when their trains are a minute late but the poor old passenger has to be an hour late before he or she even qualifies for a full refund. Where is the fairness in that?^

About 60 per cent of Network Rail^s income comes from the Department for Transport, 27.8 per cent from track access charges paid by train operators, and 10.6 per cent from income from property and shops. It spent ^36.2bn operating, renewing and maintaining the tracks in the five years between 2009 and 2014.

Meanwhile, the rail minister came under fire for an upbeat Christmas message to her constituents over the repairs programme. ^10,000 Network Rail employees will be working over the holiday period on thousands of projects, carrying out the biggest upgrade of the network since Victorian times,^ Claire Perry had written to her Devizes constituents. ^Someone said politicians are people who, when they see the light at the end of the tunnel, order more tunnel. Well, not any more as big rail projects come to fruition.^

John Spellar, shadow Foreign Office minister, seized on the letter, branding the minister ^Calamity Perry^. He said: ^We^ve had days of unacceptable disruption, with passengers suffering cancellations and miserable delays, and ultimately it will be the taxpayer that foots the bill for this incompetence. This is no way to run the railways,^ Mr Spellar said.

Why does anyone want people sacked whenever something goes wrong?

There are so few Engineers of that calibre and experience that it is a difficult enough job to fill.  

I suppose Sir Nicholas Soames thinks you could just have a CEO who was a lawyer or an accountant and that would be fine. I suggest that if you did that you would soon find NR was in complete chaos. If you don't believe me ask yourself whether Gerald Corbett (former CEO of Railtrack) was an Engineer? (Answer: no had a degree in history and had been finance director of Dixons, Redland and Grand Metropolitan).

That's because the expertise, strategies and policies come from the Board of Directors, it's not his job to be an expert, a CEO is responsible for giving leadership and ensuring that the plans devised by the Board are executed, and he reports to them......he does however tend to have the biggest profile, exposure and salary, and as such carries the can when it goes base over apex!

Surely it's down to individual TOCs as to what contingencies they have for such over runs? NR don't run (passenger) trains

Surely it's down to individual TOCs as to what contingencies they have for such over runs? NR don't run (passenger) trains

Availability of track, sidings and access to stations is NRs responsibility.

Timtabling, staff & stock availability is the TOCs respondibility.

NR will validate TOCs timtable, yes, but just to ensure it can wirk across what NR make available. The TOC will however produce the timetable

Ironically, although it is the first to leave Plymouth (05:09), it is not the first timetabled to arrive in London.  I was on the 05:30 yesterday and it was very sparsely populated.  The 05:09 goes via Bristol and the 05:30 via Melksham, putting it 20 minutes in front.

Rail disruption caused by bad planning, Network Rail says

Equipment failure and bad planning for delays caused the disruption to rail travellers over Christmas, a report by Network Rail has said.

Thousands of passengers had their journeys disrupted when work near King's Cross took longer than planned.

Trains were switched to Finsbury Park, a much smaller station.

"Not enough was done" in planning the switch, said the report, which included an apology from Mark Carne, Network Rail's chief executive.

Work near London's Paddington station finished on time, but a safety check took eight hours longer than planned.

"A number of things went wrong in these two instances. In addition it is clear that our project back-up plans and the train service plans should have done a much better job in protecting the travelling public from our engineering problems," Mr Carne said.

"Over Christmas, we undertook the biggest programme of engineering and investment work ever, on train lines across the country. Ninety-nine per cent went to plan but in the case of King's Cross and Paddington we let passengers down.

"I sincerely apologise for the disruption over the festive period and we are determined to learn the lessons so that we can continue to make the improvements the travelling public deserve."

Work should have been finished allowing King's Cross and Paddington to open on 27 December. But King's Cross had to close all day while Paddington only opened in the early afternoon.

Network Rail said that, by 10:30 on 27 December, Finsbury Park had become so crowded that incoming passengers could not get off their trains. Rail travellers had to queue for as much as three hours to get into the station.

The row over the delays led to Mr Carne renouncing his annual bonus, which could have been as much as ^135,000.

"On the basis of this report and the events on the day the industry has a long way to go to restore trust in how it handles these events," said Anthony Smith, chief executive of the rail customer watchdog Passenger Focus.

Network Rail says it will review how it plans for over-runs and will "provide better information to passengers".

The timing of these events, over the Christmas holidays, has also made us question traditional
thinking. While our industry has historically seen the ^quieter times^ of railway use as the natural
time to carry out essential project works, I believe that it is appropriate to challenge some of this
thinking. Passengers who use the railway during holidays to connect with friends and family also
deserve reliable and predictable services. That is the thought behind a second review that we have
already announced, following discussions with the Secretary of State. This will be independently led
and will report through the industry^s Rail Delivery Group.

I think he's referring to doing more work around the year, less at Christmas. Not necessarily persuading the TOCs to run more services, which they can't really do

I hope he (and the report's authors) don't prejudge the conclusions.

However, as noted above, the project had been cascading train drivers throughout the day and, shortly after midnight, the supply of new drivers  to support this cascade, ran out. There was one remaining driver and five engineering trains still on-site and this was the point at which the project started to rapidly lose time. Whilst all the drivers involved were cooperative  and committed to completing the project, they reached their maximum shift duration limits, which for safety reasons cannot be exceeded.

With only one driver and five trains spread out over the length of the site, progress on site slowed to a crawl as trains were in the wrong place to support the planned pace of work. This was compounded by the mechanical failure of one of the ballast wagons which failed in such a way that it could not be moved for a number of hours.

Contractors will be required to test any new equipment in an off-the-railway environment before it is used on live railway work.

Engineering train crew and contingency at times of peak work will be treated with the same level of nationwide cross-project scrutiny and planning as other resources in short supply, such as signal testers and overhead line engineers."

Not sure what you mean by "prejudge"?

This is the report & has its conclusions, which the authors & Mark Carne are commenting on. So surely it's already "judged", not being "prejudged"?

Page 18.....wow.

You have to wonder just how NR got themselves into this mess.

They sourced a load of cranes.

They also sourced a load of *new* "log grabs", which appear to be bits that go on to the end of a crane's jib in order to allow it to pick up scrap rail.  They even had a spare one, and an on-site fitter.

But they didn't test in advance that these log grabs actually worked on these jibs, and when it came to it the hydraulic joints couldn't be made pressure-tight and all the cranes started leaking fluid and losing pressure.
And that's game over: they were unable to clear scrap rail, and it all goes down hill from there.

Given that these cranes are road-rail vehicles, and the business end of a small crane's jib is hardly new technology, sensible engineers would do, you would think, a quick acceptance test and make sure that there hadn't been a "whoops, the fittings are the wrong size" cockup on ordering brand new, untested grabs, and perhaps bolt on in the yard and spin it around and check it works.

NR, however, didn't do any testing until Christmas day, by which time it was all too late.  The onsite fitter couldn't bodge the connectors, and from then on they were b*ggered: they were running late, so the engineering trains ran late, so the drivers timed out, so they didn't have spare drivers available, etc, etc.


Ten minutes' testing would have found that the hoses didn't fit the jibs in advance. Then the railways ran out of railway staff, and had no plan to obtain more.  They didn't have enough drivers to handle the workload when recovering from the contingency they'd built in.  Contingency which isn't resourced isn't
contingency.


The lessons learned are shameful.  Point 2 is just a disgrace:



How can you call yourself an engineer and not have some idea that the live workplace, with massive time pressures, at time on Christmas Eve, is not the time to test out whether previously untried equipment works?  Seriously?   

And similarly point 5:


Is the whole point of contingency planning that you evaluate all the things that might fail, and decide to reduce, mitigate, transfer or accept the risk?  Does it really take a genius, or bitter experience,
to realise that having people to drive the engineering trains is quite important, and without them you're b*ggered?

The Network Rail report is available at http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/Gallery/Christmas-2014-passenger-disruption-report-2208.aspx

No worries with your very interesting post, SandTEngineer.  ;D

However, I do have some issues with Network Rail apparently trying to rewrite their corporate excuses in that report.  ::)

This is a one-off evidence session which considered the over-running engineering works at King^s Cross and Paddington on the weekend of 27/28 December. The Committee took evidence from Network Rail, and then from the rail regulator, the Office of Rail Regulation.

Parliament TV: Railway network disruption over Christmas
Inquiry: Railway network disruption over Christmas
Transport Committee
Witnesses
Wednesday 14 January 2015, Thatcher Room, Portcullis House

At 2.05pm
Mark Carne, Chief Executive, Network Rail
Robin Gisby, Managing Director, Network Operations, Network Rail

At 2.50pm
Richard Price, Chief Executive, Office of Rail Regulation
Joanna Whittington, Director, Railway Markets and Economics, Office of Rail Regulation

Likely topics for discussion include:
The causes for the over-running engineering works at King^s Cross and Paddington;
the contingency planning for these overruns, and the use of Finsbury Park station in place of King^s Cross;
the level of information and support offered to passengers; and
the Office of Rail Regulation^s review into the overrunning engineering works.

The session was originally scheduled for 7 January, but was rearranged following a request from Network Rail, to allow the session to be informed by the report commissioned by Mark Carne from Dr Francis Paonessa, Network Rail infrastructure projects director. Dr Paonessa^s report, which is due to be published on Friday, will cover the sequence of events and associated decision making that led to the problems experienced, and make recommendations on immediate steps to be taken by Network Rail to improve delivery of engineering works.

Passengers must be at heart of rail planning
12 February 2015

The rail industry must place passengers at the heart of enhanced contingency planning for overrunning engineering works, the rail regulator today concluded following its investigation into overruns at King's Cross and Paddington in December 2014.

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) launched an investigation after more than 115,000 passengers were affected by overrunning engineering works when travelling into or out of King's Cross and Paddington stations between 27 and 28 December 2014. ORR's investigation was aimed at learning lessons with a view to preventing similar disruption happening again. It was informed by direct feedback from passengers, evidence from Passenger Focus, London TravelWatch, Network Rail, and all of the affected train operators.

Network Rail delivered more than 98% of the complex engineering works planned for the Christmas and New Year period on time. However, ORR's detailed analysis showed that there were significant weaknesses in the planning and oversight of the King's Cross and Paddington works, and how communication was managed when overruns occurred. The plans failed to put the impact on passengers at the centre of decision making, and this meant the service passengers received during the course of disruption was not acceptable and led to widespread confusion, frustration, discomfort and anxiety.

Network Rail needs to continue undertaking large-scale engineering projects in order to renew and enhance Britain's railways. The effective planning, management and communication of this work is essential to the delivery of a safe and reliable railway. ORR is setting out requirements that ensure Network Rail, working with train operators, develops clear contingency plans which help passengers if works overrun, and that if needed, the plans are implemented in a timely and effective way:

Improved planning for potential overruns of engineering works. Passengers' needs, welfare and safety at a time of disruption must be at the heart of Network Rail's and train operators' contingency arrangements.
Effective oversight of engineering work possessions and communications. Network Rail should ensure the key decision points for continuing with critical stages of planned works, and implementation of contingency plans are understood by all parties involved.

Network Rail with support from train operators should review arrangements for managing the control of an overrun incident, with a command structure covering all elements of an incident including train planning, station management and communication with passengers.

The impact of an overrun on passengers can in some part be mitigated by accurate and timely information. The industry now has plans in place to further improve passenger information. The train operator plans, including dates for delivery, need to be published so that passengers can be confident that change will be delivered and ORR can monitor against them.

Network Rail is reviewing all contingency plans for works scheduled over Easter and the May 2015 bank holidays. ORR expects Network Rail to have implemented all the recommendations, including those which require work with train operators, in advance of the Christmas 2015 engineering works. The regulator will audit their implementation to make sure the improvements are all in place.

Joanna Whittington, ORR's director railway markets and economics and the investigation lead, said:

"Network Rail has rightly acknowledged it didn't do enough for passengers affected by overrunning engineering works at King's Cross and Paddington this Christmas. While the company generally has a good record for delivering engineering work on time, in this instance passengers were really let down.

"Our investigation found that contingency planning did not fully consider the impact of potential overruns on passengers and that this needs to change. In future, plans will address the impact on passengers as well as engineering and train operation issues. Network Rail cannot achieve this alone, train operators will also need to play their part.

"Network Rail has committed to ensuring all work undertaken this Easter has a contingency plan which is fit for purpose, and to implement all recommendations in time for engineering works planned over Christmas 2015. ORR will audit its progress, to ensure that passengers' needs and safety are central to Network Rail's and train operator contingency arrangements."

The report does state that the investigation is not complete and that further investigation is taking place under the H&S Act into the 'Safety' issues identified.