“This will be a new offering that people haven’t seen
before on the Western, so hopefully people will think the wait has been worth it”
‘I’m not going to say that it’s there yet, but we’re in a much better position
than we were before. From an internal position, we’re starting to get a much better idea of what each area’s contribution is to the central overheads. We get an income from the station, obviously, and an income from running the trains, but what does it cost to run the business?’ The Western region runs from Paddington station down to Penzance and
Newbury, bordered by Worcester and Oxford to the north and Wales to the west. Tocs that run through the region are First Great Western, Heathrow Express and CrossCountry, as well as several freight operators. How does Network Rail’s relationship with these Tocs work now? ‘The requirements of the Tocs, at the moment, are quite different.
CrossCounty crosses every route, bar Kent, I think. So they we feed into another Network Rail team, as they want a central body and not day-to- day contact with us. First Great Western is obviously where most of the relationship is, but the franchise renegotiations have started, so we’re talking with the four shortlisted bidders. That has changed the dynamic on that route. So we don’t all meet altogether, unless it’s something topical. ‘We have a Level 1 meeting with FGW monthly about safety and
performance and I speak to Mark Hopwood [FGW’s MD] at least twice a week.’ The current Great Western franchise ends in April 2013, with
electrification beginning in 2014. So the four shortlisted bidders for the new franchise – FirstGroup, Arriva, National Express and Stagecoach – are all trying to get a realistic idea of how much disruption the electrification programme will cause, so that they can build it into their bid. ‘We’ve gone more than a generation now without a wholesale
electrification programme. So the first thing we’ve done is go out and find those that did the East Coast and understand a little bit from them about how it was done to make sure we’re not missing a trick,’ says Hallgate. ‘Some of the processes they employed, such as standing on trains without safety harnesses, I think we’ve moved beyond! We’re currently looking at specs for
PAGE 16 MAY/JUNE 2012
the electrification train and making representations to the bidders about the amount of disruption there will be so they can bid about that. And we’re looking at the closures we’ll need.
‘There’s a couple of tunnels on the western end of the patch that look
like they’ll need up to six week closure, but there are fairly minor diversions. We are talking to the bidders at the moment as to whether it’s better to close in and get it done in one go or to have lots of little closures. I was on Anglia when we closed Anglia tunnel for six weeks. Once you’ve worked out that there is no other way, then it’s the quality of the contingency and the diversions you put in place. We replaced a section of the track because it was closed for six weeks, so we were able to communicate to people that we’d maximised the work while the line was closed and that that can be better than worrying about an overrun every Monday morning for two years. Much of it is around the quality of the communication. ‘With West Coast, the trains were already there, but the journey times
improved. This will be a new offering that people haven’t seen before on the Western, so hopefully people will think that the wait has been worth it.’ The need to have plans in place to speak to bidders about has made
Network Rail have to plan further ahead than it otherwise would have, admits Hallgate, which he says will be helpful in the long run. He and his colleagues are already starting to look at diversionary routes that will be used during the work to see which parts may need upgrading to deal with the volume of traffic expected. A major resignalling programme is also taking place, primarily to get the route ready for electrification, with some elements also needed for Crossrail. The work at Reading and Paddington has already been completed, with Bristol due to be upgraded in Christmas 2015 and Oxford in 2016. In his previous role as programme director, Hallgate was in charge of both signalling and electrification work, so he understands the issues from every angle. ‘It’s bread and butter stuff, with the aim being to have everything in place
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