NR said it would be 'seeking answers' from companies working during the festive holiday on the track remodelling scheme at Rugby after the project over-ran by four days, causing disruption for thousands of passengers travelling between London, north west England and Scotland.

NR, which took all day-to-day repair work in-house in 2003 but continued to outsource track renewals, is likely to stop contractors overseeing schemes and is considering taking more work in-house as a result of the debacle, a report in Friday's Times said.

Companies involved in the Rugby scheme included project manager Bechtel, WS Atkins, Cloughsmith Rail, ETI, Jarvis, Kent PHK, Nuttalls, Scott Wilson Group and Telent.

The work, part of the 8 billion sterling upgrade of the West Coast main line from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, was due to be completed before New Year's Eve.

However, NR sparked fury among passengers, lawmakers and train operators when it admitted it would be unable to complete it and re-open the line until this morning.

Reports suggested a number of reasons for the overruns including a shortage of skilled engineers and contract staff.

NR said in a statement that it would launch a thorough review of what went wrong at Rugby, although it declined to comment on the report claiming it was considering getting rid of contractors.

'We will be seeking answers from our contractors as to why this situation came about,' the statement said. 'But in advance of the conclusions of this review, it would be wrong to speculate about what the possible outcomes and consequences might be.'

The work on the approaches to Rugby station during the festive period involved installing more than 5,000 metres of new overhead line, as well as new tracks, points and signals.

The remodelling is part of a bigger scheme to increase train frequency and reduce journey times on the West Coast from December 2008.

NR spends around 3 billion sterling a year on track renewal work, the majority of which is done by contractors.

More than 250,000 passengers had journeys disrupted by the four-day overrun at Rugby and a similar 24-hour stoppage at London's Liverpool Street station after NR said the project overruns over Christmas had taken it by surprise.

See also:

Network Rail to investigate contractors

Construction News: 04 January 2008
Andrea Klettner

Network Rail is set to investigate nine of its contractors following massive disruption on its rail lines over the holiday period.

The West Coast Main Line has fully reopened today after services were disrupted for four days because Network Rail did not complete the work on time.

Network Rail has apologised for the delays and chief executive Iain Coucher is launching an investigation into the incident.

Mr Coucher said: "I will be summoning our project managers, Bechtel, and the principal contractors involved to attend so they can personally explain to me what has gone wrong.

"They gave me assurances before Christmas on which they have not delivered. I want answers from them."

Bechtel had eight contractors, including Jarvis, working on the track and it is reported that insufficient engineers were the cause of the delay.

The network operator is now facing an investigation from the rail regulator, which is expected to lead to huge fines.

An estimated 60,000 passengers had to contend with badly-disrupted journeys again today with the line shut in the Rugby area of the West Midlands.

There are also calls for Network Rail to bring its renewal works back in-house in order to gain greater control of its lines.

General secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union Bob Crow said: ""Network Rail has already shown how much better things can be by bringing most routine maintenance back in-house, and there is no earthly reason why the bulk of major renewals contracts shouldn't come back in-house as well."

See also:

Network Rail to take over more track work after new year chaos

The Guardian: January 5, 2008
Dan Milmo, transport correspondent

Rail industry chiefs have promised to make sweeping changes to the way engineering projects are run as part of a pledge to passengers that the new year travel debacle will never be repeated.

Network Rail, the company in charge of maintaining and upgrading rail infrastructure, is considering taking responsibility for overhead electricity lines away from private contractors after engineering work on the west coast main line overran by four days. It is also understood that disruption to the London-Glasgow route over Christmas cost Virgin Trains up to £10m in lost revenues.

Network Rail's chief executive, Iain Coucher, said the company would "learn lessons" from the mishandling of the engineering project at Rugby, which disrupted the travel plans of 50,000 rail passengers a day: "I will not let a debacle like this happen on the railways again." Coucher refused to blame Bechtel, the project management specialist overseeing the work, after contractors failed to supply enough engineers to replace overhead lines, adding that the company had done a good job for Network Rail over the past five years.

Problems with overhead lines also resulted in work at London's Liverpool Street station spilling over by one day.

Coucher said Network Rail was tripped up by its dependency on a small number of overhead line engineers from private companies, a pool that it calls upon only a few times a year. Network Rail uses an in-house team to repair power lines on the east coast line and is expected to expand that group, stripping work from private contractors such as Jarvis.

"Given that these [overhead lines] are very key resources, we will be looking to use more of our own people to do that specialist work," he said.

Network Rail took day-to-day maintenance work in-house in 2003 but still hires private contractors for major engineering work. Its own in-house work was severely criticised last year after Network Rail admitted that an inspection team had failed to spot the track fault that derailed a Virgin Trains service in Cumbria last February, killing one elderly passenger and injuring 22 people.

According to early estimates at Virgin Trains, the west coast fiasco cost the company between £6m and £10m in ticket refunds, lost business and emergency coach hire as thousands of passengers were shuttled between stations. Virgin will demand compensation from Network Rail, which is also expecting a multimillion pound fine from the Office of Rail Regulation over the delays.