Network Rail warned to reduce disruption

By Matthew Legg

Last updated 12:02, Thursday, 04 September 2008

Network Rail has been warned not to allow a repeat of the chaos caused by overrunning engineering works on the West Coast Mainline in January.

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) said disruption must be cut by 17 per cent within three years and by 37 per cent within five years.

Hundreds of thousands of journeys were disrupted at New Year when works in the Rugby area overran, affecting travellers throughout the country including Cumbria.

Passengers returning from festive breaks were left stranded or packed onto overcrowded buses as services were cancelled.

Network Rail blamed “a shortage of specialist engineering and contractor staff” for the problem.

At the time, Carlisle MP Eric Martlew called the situation “diabolical”.

Disruption has continued through 2008 and caused problems on most weekends this summer.

The ORR fined Network Rail a record £14million and demanded that the company implement a programme of improvements to the way it manages engineering work to reduce unplanned disruption when work overruns.

However, the regulator has welcomed performance figures which showed that 90.1 per cent of trains ran on time in the period April-June this year – the best level for more than 10 years.

ORR chief executive Bill Emery said today: “The latest figures are excellent news for most passengers. However, the regular closure of parts of the network for engineering work causes substantial disruption and inconvenience to many passengers and freight customers, as well as deterring others from using the network altogether.

“For rail to make its full contribution to our economy, it is important that this disruption is reduced significantly.”

He went on: “Over the next five years Network Rail must continue to carry out a full schedule of maintenance and renewal of the infrastructure, together with a massive programme of enhancements to increase network capacity.

“But work by Network Rail and train operators has shown that it should be possible both to achieve increased efficiency and to reduce disruption to train services by adopting best practice and exploiting technological advances.

“We expect the railway to be kept open for business for as much time as is possible, and we propose to set Network Rail a target to reduce disruption to passengers by 17 per cent within three years and 37 per cent within five years.”