Rail regulator to investigate rail work delay chaos

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

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^▸ (United Kingdom)'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.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Pending the Regulator's investigation, calls for sackings.  From the Guardian:

Network Rail must sack management over Christmas disruptions ^ Tory MP^▸ (Member of Parliament)

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?^

[Chris from Nailsea]

Further coverage, from the Financial Times:

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^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) 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^▸ (United Kingdom).

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^» (Transport Salaried Staffs' Association - about) 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.

[ChrisB]

Are we ok wuoting whole chunks of FT website as its behind a paywall?

[Chris from Nailsea]

Fair point, ChrisB - but my first visit was free, thus enabling me to quote that article. 

[Electric train]

Nice to see MP^▸ (Member of Parliament)'s politicking from the comfort of their centrally heated country pile, digesting the turkey n stuffing washed down no doubt with a nice drop of red whilst there were rail workers out in the cold, rain and snow surviving on a company supplied burger van and a tin of cola.

I am sure MP's would be warmly welcomed out on site Christmas Day and Boxing Day there are plenty of burgers n chips to share

[ellendune]

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^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) who was a lawyer or an accountant and that would be fine. I suggest that if you did that you would soon find NR^» (Network Rail - home page) 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).

[TaplowGreen]

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^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) who was a lawyer or an accountant and that would be fine. I suggest that if you did that you would soon find NR^» (Network Rail - home page) 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!

[ellendune]

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^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) who was a lawyer or an accountant and that would be fine. I suggest that if you did that you would soon find NR^» (Network Rail - home page) 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!

[irony]And in the case of Railtrack that went just like that didn't it[/irony]

So the board decided that the company didn't need Engineers and outsourced almost all of them so they didn't have the advice they needed.  When Hatfield occurred they turned to their Chief Operating Officer - who, as an economist was the one who had to take the decisions on speed limits!  Having the sense to know the limits of his expertise, he did the only thing he could and shut the network down!

Thats what happens when you leave Engineers out of the management of an essentially engineering operation. 

[stuving]

I've been trying to work out some context for the Kings Cross events. While this overrun is one too many, it was the poor contingency planning that was the real scandal. (Arguably the Paddington one was yet another case of collateral damage rather than an overrun, and it is less clear whom to blame for the resulting mess.) Overrunning can never have a zero probability, and should not becuse then you'd take too long to finish anything.

The original plan was to hand back two tracks or 10:00 Saturday and operate with just the up lines until Monday morning. From 7:00 to 10:00 on Saturday GN services would use Finsbury Park instead, with EC terminating at Stevenage, Peterborough, and perhaps other places, as substitutes with GN trains filling the gap from London. (I'm assuming this, which is what happened, was also the original plan.)

So when this handover was delayed, the response was to extend this temporary arrangement for the whole of Saturday, but with EC running into Finsbury Park too.

From the reports, it seems that there was not enough capacity at Finsbury Park for this to work all day, and that should have been clear at the planning stage. Up to 10:00 it was an OK idea, as EC's services are longer and few arrive by then - so they were mainly dealing with outbound passengers. But later on, while there were surprisingly few cancellations, the delays inside and outside the trains reached several hours.

What are the alternatives? For electric trains very few. The theory that there are far fewer passengers at holidays is only really true for commuters - some of EC's routes are a lot busier at over Christmas and new year. So the coping strategy has to be to divert trains into spare commuter-train platforms at other termini. But the routes to do that from the ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) to St. Pancras (which is too small anyway) or Liverpool Street don't exist. Euston is the usual alternative for Scotland, but itself being worked on this year. So I can see why they did what they did - but they may now be deciding with full hindsight that it was a mistake.

I can see only one line on the map: the Cannonbury line from Finsbury Park to Hackney and on to Liverpool Street. I suspect it may not be able to take big trains, and has limited capacity. Other than that, it's a case of dragging trains across an unwired gap - such as Peterborough-Ely - or reversing at Hitchin and Cambridge. Both will add time, perhaps as much as an hour for the backtrack, but hardly as bad for passengers as queuing for an hour outside in the cold. If there are not enough diesels lying about, the last is - having eliminated all alternatives - probably what they ought to have had as plan B.

Robin Gisby is described as Network Rail managing director, network operation. As such, I'm sure he has no personal responsibility for the overrunning work. However, he must be in charge of setting up, and implementing, contingency plans for overruns. So I imagine his desk must be hard to see for the great heap of bucks stopping on it.

Of course the lack of usable diversionary routes is itself an issue - and I suspect a major factor in such works causing more problems here than elsewhere in Europe. After all, they do not have even a one-day shutdown at Christmas, but mostly manage to run a full service (without commuter trains) throughout plus holiday extras.

As a footnote, for those who like such things:

For some reason it was found necessary to reroute one Hull Trains service (1A93) to St. Pancras. Now there isn't a direct route for that, even with a non-electric train. So they came up with this: a reversal over the flyover at Harringay, then down the curve to Harringay Park on the Tottenham and Hampstead, across to the Midland and through Belsize tunnel, reverse at West Hampstead Thameslink and back through the tunnel to St. Pancras International (domestic).

But what was timetabled was even odder - going down the main line to Copenhagen Jn., then segueing onto the North London Incline and through Camden Road and round as far as Gospel Oak, reversing past the station and along the Tottenham and Hampstead past Junction Road Jn. so as to reverse again and follow the original route from there. Still three reversals but longer and more devious.

In the event that route was blocked, and this train (on both Saturday and Sunday) ran as originally planned (see http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y60007/2014/12/27/advanced). So obviously that's feasible, with a source of power, but hardly counts as a viable plan B or even C or D. 

[ChrisB]

Surely it's down to individual TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) as to what contingencies they have for such over runs? NR^» (Network Rail - home page) don't run (passenger) trains

[Electric train]

Surely it's down to individual TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) as to what contingencies they have for such over runs? NR^» (Network Rail - home page) don't run (passenger) trains

Takes 2 to tango.

Yes it is the TOCs that operate the trains, with a major blockade or reduced line access for planned engineering the TOC and NR will agree to where stock is stabled, for example sets were stabled in KX station over Christmas so a quick start to services could happen; this could then lead to a shortage of stock if it gets locked in because of an overrun. 

So when "the plan" falls apart a lot of on the fly thinking has to be done, there can be other complications like engineering trains blocking lines and an underestimation on the number of people wanting to travel hence announcing passengers should go to an unsuitable station when the perhaps in hindsight the best announcement should have been only travel if it is essential, I am sure the intent was an honourable one with perhaps the overrun overrunning longer than originally thought.

There is this thing called the Swiss Cheese Model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model which I suspect will sum up both the KX and Padd engineering overruns, it is unlikely to be down to one thing or person

[stuving]

Surely it's down to individual TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) as to what contingencies they have for such over runs? NR^» (Network Rail - home page) don't run (passenger) trains

TOCs obviously have a final say as to what they can operate. And for GN, terminating short at Finsbury Park is almost their sole business - it's their station, after all. But EC have a number of options, all using stations managed by others (mainly GN).

But timetabling is NR's role, as I suspect is deciding who gets to use restricted capacity. And if you listen to Robin Gisby's interview (posted here http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=15088.msg168066#msg168066) he makes NR's central role clear in his wording. He heads up NR's interface with the TOCs, so his job is to provide a network for running trains on - and, if he can't, to offer alternatives wherever possible (7-day railway and all that). And, pragmatically, if a contingency plan needs to be implemented in a few hours, the cooperation between TOCs (and with TfL^» (Transport for London - about)) will need to be centrally managed by someone, or it won't happen quickly enough.

[ChrisB]

Availability of track, sidings and access to stations is NRs^» (Network Rail - home page) responsibility.

Timtabling, staff & stock availability is the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) 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

[TaplowGreen]

Availability of track, sidings and access to stations is NRs^» (Network Rail - home page) responsibility.

Timtabling, staff & stock availability is the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) 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

You can add stock reliability to the TOC list too.........I say this having just had a call from a pal on the first PLY^» (Plymouth - next trains)-PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) of the day which has just fallen over (again) and is being terminated at Bristol!