NEWS
Four contractors win places on £1.2bn Network Rail frameworks
The preferred suppliers have been announced for Network Rail’s four enhancements, buildings and civils frameworks in London and the South East for Control Period 5, worth a total of £1.2bn.
VolkerFitzpatrick won the Anglia contract, Costain the framework for Kent, BAM Nuttall in Sussex, and Geoffrey Osborne for Wessex.
The framework agreements
will come into force on 1 April 2014 and work will include platform extensions on key commuter routes, station enhancements, new footbridges, and upgrades to bridges, embankments and tunnels.
The agreements include shared objectives to enable both parties to share risk and reward more collaboratively. Safety also accounted for 15% of the evaluation criteria for suppliers.
Nick Elliott, southern regional director for infrastructure projects, Network Rail, said: “I look forward to working with our suppliers to build a bigger, better railway for passengers in and around the capital and to help support the region’s economic growth.
“Safety is at the heart of everything we do, so it is right that we reflect
that in the way we choose our supply partners. This represents a significant change to the way we assess safety and underlines our commitment to delivering a fundamental improvement in workforce safety within the rail industry.”
Severe weather batters the network, causing landslips and major disruption
The severe weather over Christmas and into the new year has caused huge disruption across the rail network, with engineers working flat out to restore services.
The south west of England, Sussex and Cumbria were particularly badly hit, but many regions have suffered disruption from high winds and flooding, especially coastal areas. A severe landslip in Ockley, Sussex, will be particularly difficult to repair.
Train performance has worst month in three years
Train performance for November-December hit its lowest level in three years.
Just 84.4% of trains were on time in period 8 (10 Nov to 13 Dec), Network Rail announced – one of the three worst monthly results since 2006/7.
The South West Trains / Network Rail alliance was able to complete repair work following a major landslip between Petersfield and Haslemere, which closed the line for nearly two weeks.
In Cumbria, sea defences and retaining walls were washed away between Sellafield and Maryport. Kirkby-in-Furness and Braystones stations were flooded, damaging trackside equipment too. Martin Frobisher, Network Rail area director, said: “The storm and
The statistics showed that 60% of all delays were attributable to Network Rail.
The company faces significant fines from the ORR for failing to meet targets on its long- distance passenger services – though Network Rail noted that London and South East services performed relatively well.
Regional services were the worst hit, especially London Midland, which suffered from severe weather, fallen trees on the line and OLE failures, leading to a PPM of just 76%.
subsequent flooding has caused significant damage to the railway along the Cumbrian coast and our people will be working throughout the weekend to firstly assess the damage and then start work to repair our sea defences, track, replace equipment and remove debris from the line.”
Network Rail managing director of network operations Robin Gisby called it “one of the most challenging periods we have faced in recent times”.
The moving annual average (MAA) is now at 90.4%. East Coast remains the franchise with the lowest MAA, at 82.3%.
The best performing franchise continues to be
c2c Rail, with 97.3% PPM and 97.2% MAA.
The figures for period 9, during which the weather was even more severe, are likely to provide more bad news for Network Rail.
Aborted Bombardier SSL re-signalling contract ‘had little chance of succeeding’
The contract awarded to Bombardier to re-signal the London Underground’s Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines suffered problems and tensions from the start, an insider has told RTM.
LU announced in early January that Bombardier had lost the contract and that it would re-let it in an attempt to keep the project on track.
4 | rail technology magazine Dec/Jan 14
One insider with knowledge of the contractual relationship, who asked not to be named, told RTM: “Bombardier is a top notch international transportation company. Their modern signalling technology has been proven elsewhere in the world but they had no experience of installation anywhere in the UK and little understanding of the complexity of dealing with London Underground.
“It had little chance of succeeding. Leaving aside the technical problems of running different signalling systems alongside each other on some sections of track where other services operate, it is the management and control of this project which has greatly contributed to its failure.”
Full story, including the statements from LU and Bombardier, on page 63.
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