INFRARAIL REVIEW
today’s youth to embrace engineering in rail as a career.
She, like RTM, backs the Women in Rail group, and said too many schools have no engineering element in their general curriculum.
She told us: “We have to build into our whole education system that there is a real future in rail and that it is exciting, but understanding the way we make these changes is crucial.
“Recently I was out with some of the HS2 engineers and we were looking at a major project and they said ‘you realise of course that the project manager on this is currently taking their GCSEs’ – because we are looking so far into the future with some of these programmes.
“So we have to get those youngsters who are making their decisions at school to focus on engineering opportunities. We need engineers in their thousands, not just the hundreds.”
Strategic intent
Simon Kirby was another of the event’s keynote speakers. He is widely judged to have been a very successful leader of Network Rail’s Infrastructure Projects business, so much so that HS2 poached him to be their new chief executive during the construction phase, with Alison Munro shifting roles to focus on the project’s development and the legislation for phase 2.
Kirby told the Infrarail audience: “The biggest shift, for me, in CP4 has been the strategic intent to be more collaborative as an organisation within Network Rail. It’s really positive to see we have a series of long-term frameworks set up, alliances set up and we are now looking to
“We also have a commitment to reduce costs by 20%, while aiming to deliver improved services and improving the retail opportunities available at stations across the network.
“In the future we are looking to be challenged in a collaborative way to improve standards, and we also want to deliver better customer service while being more accountable in what will hopefully be a very successful CP5.”
The future of franchising
It wasn’t all infrastructure and engineering at the show: Clare Moriarty was Thursday’s keynote speaker, focusing on franchising and the government’s role in supporting the supply chain.
Moriarty is the director general of the Rail Executive within the Department for Transport.
She used the event to reveal that the job search was beginning for a managing director of the new Offi ce of Rail Passenger Services (ORPS) in the DfT. That new body will begin work later this year, with responsibilities including the delivery of the franchise programme and the management of existing franchises.
see that fl ow throughout the supply chain in terms of more assurance of works and effi ciency
32 | rail technology magazine Jun/Jul 14
During the Q&A session, RTM asked a question about devolution in rail franchising. Considering how radical the devolution proposals once
take in one jump, so the Department is leading on the franchise competitions for Northern and TPE, but with a great deal of infl uence from Rail North.
“Once the franchises are let, it will be a properly joint structure to manage those franchises.”
Moriarty also used Infrarail to praise the achievements of the rail supply chain, which was of course well-represented at the show.
She outlined the changes within the DfT that led to the creation of the Rail Executive, and said: “It’s change that I hope will make us stronger and better partners.”
But she said it was not about “fi xing something that was broken”, but about building on success.
The franchising programme is “truly back on track” after the West Coast crisis in 2012, she added.
The invitations to tender for the franchises currently being procured and those recently let, such as TSGN (Govia) and Essex Thameside
going forward. It isn’t perfect, as yet, but it has come a long way forward. And I’m sure in the next fi ve years this will continue to improve.”
He said 9,000 projects were delivered during CP4, with the majority of the £21bn investment going on capacity enhancements.
He discussed the forward planning for CP5, noting that 75% of the spend for the fi ve-year period has already been contracted, and said he is determined that Network Rail’s already-good safety record keeps improving throughout the control period.
He said: “There is also an increase in the use of what will be termed the ‘Digital Railway’ with the introduction of ETCS, including traffi c management in the form of ERTMS. It is no longer something to be done in the future, it is a commitment to do it in CP5. For instance, Thameslink will not get to 24 trains per hour without ETCS operating. Again ECTS will be used with the new Intercity Express Trains.
were, the current ‘partnership’ with Rail North sounds like the DfT will still retain a lot of control, while the West Midlands’ request has been all-but rebuffed – so has the department gone cool on the idea of devolution?, we asked.
She replied: “Thank you for raising it – no, we certainly haven’t. We are talking a great deal to Rail North in particular at the moment. We’re committed to developing that partnership agreement, which will allow the department and Rail North to jointly manage the franchises for Northern and TPE (TransPennine Express) when they’re let.
“We haven’t gone for a fully devolved model, because that would have been a very big step to
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