The Office of Rail Regulation probe into the overruns at Rugby, London Liverpool Street and Glasgow’s Shields Junction will look at whether plans for upgrade work on the west coast main line will deliver in time for scheduled timetable improvements in December. New tracks need to be laid between Rugby and Stafford, while junctions at Rugby need to be remodelled before Virgin Trains can start running services more frequently and faster on the key London-Glasgow route.

The inquiry, to report its findings before the end of February, will also examine the overall approach of Network Rail, the owner of the UK’s rail infrastructure, to planning and managing big rail projects.

The investigation could lead to a further fine for Network Rail following a £2.4m penalty last year over the botching of a resignalling project at Portsmouth over Christmas 2006.

The ORR’s terms of reference suggest it believes there may be wider, systematic problems with Network Rail’s planning. The ORR has powers to investigate whether Network Rail is keeping to the terms of its licence to operate the rail network.

Chris Bolt, ORR chairman, said the investigation would be extensive and thorough. “Our investigation will focus both on events over Christmas and the New Year and on Network Rail’s management of the west coast programme generally”, he said. “We will determine whether the company is breaching its licence to operate the network, and, if so, what remedial action it needs to take.”

Network Rail is to meet contractors involved in the work at Rugby on Thursday and Friday during its own investigation of the over-run, which saw full services resume on January 4, rather than December 31 as originally planned.

“Despite the overrun, the work we needed to get done over Christmas and New Year on the west coast got done, so the programme remains on track,” the company said.

However, it was checking its viability. “We’re having a good look at the programme for the rest of the year for the west coast, to ensure it remains doable,” it said.

Services between Glasgow and the Clyde coast re­mained disrupted on Tuesday by the latest problems to emerge, at Shields Junction be­tween Glasgow and Paisley.

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Virgin Trains to attack Network Rail

Daily Telegraph: 09/01/2008
By Alistair Osborne

The boss of Virgin Trains is today expected to deliver a stinging critique of track owner Network Rail when he appears before MPs on the Transport Select Committee.

Tony Collins has already called for an inquiry into Network Rail and better monitoring of the company by the rail regulator after the New Year engineering over-runs at Rugby and Liverpool Street that caused havoc for hundreds of thousands of passengers.

The fiasco cost Virgin £6m in lost revenue, which the company will try to claim back, but Mr Collins said bigger issues were at stake.

"The concern is not so much compensation but the reputational damage to the industry," he said, adding that leisure passengers will have been deterred by the severe disruption over the holiday period.

Train operators need to increase volumes of such passengers to justify the high prices bid for rail franchises under the Government's new franchising policy.

Mr Collins is appearing as part of a wider inquiry by the committee into a 30-year strategy for the railways.

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) yesterday told Network Rail it was investigating whether it had breached its licence and whether a fine was applicable. Its report will be published in February.

ORR chairman Chris Bolt said: "Passengers were badly let down by Network Rail's handling of its Christmas and New Year engineering programme."

The ORR investigation has been extended to examine the company's overall management of the West Coast main line upgrade.

Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers yesterday accused Labour of creating a company, in Network Rail, which was "not properly accountable to anyone" and said ministers were "invisible as the rail crisis deepened".

Tory MP John Redwood said Network Rail's management should face financial penalties for their "egregious errors".

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Network Rail under Tory attack for new year delays

The Guardian: January 9 2008
Dan Milmo

The quasi-public ownership of Network Rail came under further scrutiny yesterday as the Conservative party accused the government of being complicit in the "monumental foul-up" of major engineering work last week.

The shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers, said the government must bear responsibility for creating an organisation with inadequate regulatory and ownership structures. Network Rail is under pressure after work on the west coast main line that was due to finish on New Year's Eve overran by four days and an engineering project outside London Liverpool Street overshot by 24 hours.

"The disruption over new year was a monumental foul-up," Villiers said. "The underlying problem is that when it created Network Rail, the government failed to put in place effective means to ensure that it was answerable for its actions. When it provides poor service, too often it gets away with impunity."

Villiers added that fines levied by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) were counter-productive because they ultimately came out of the taxpayer's pocket.

The transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, said blaming the engineering overruns on Network Rail's alleged lack of accountability was "frankly ludicrous".

The ORR said its inquiry into the new year overruns would include scrutiny of Network Rail's remaining west coast work. Virgin Trains is banking on major signalling and track-widening work being completed by December, when a new timetable is introduced on the London-to-Glasgow route.

A Virgin Trains spokesman said an assurance that the west coast work would be completed on time was "more important" than apportioning blame for the new year delays.

"We really need a guarantee that there is something in place that will stop it happening again," he said. "The ORR cannot just go to Network Rail and ask if everything will be OK and then take their assurances. Network Rail really needs to be grilled on this.

Tom Winsor, the former rail regulator, said Britain's rail infrastructure should be reprivatised: "I predict and hope that the next government should have the courage to turn Network Rail into a company limited by shares and then sell those shares on the stock exchange." He added that Network Rail had layers of "permafrost" in its management structure that needed a "flame-thrower" in order to prevent the new year overruns being repeated.