BLOGS
A selection of our recent blogs posted at
www.railtechnologymagazine.com
December 19 Try harder
Will this latest ‘action’ from the ORR actually result in any changes to Network Rail’s performance?
Requiring the company to put ‘ro- bust plans’ in place for next year’s target does not seem to be a very harsh punishment for failure to reach targets set for punctuality on both freight and long-distance passenger services, as well as a lack of effort to attempt to reach them.
Of course, there is no possible way Network Rail could reverse the damage done in time to see improvements for this year, but
that this will persist into 2012/13, or will this declaration of contract breach be enough to motivate a positive difference in punctuality?
Stopping the decline of train per- formance will be hard enough, without the added challenge of in- volving Network Rail into provid- ing a concerted effort to improve.
December 16 Which HS2?
the simple message of ‘try harder’ seems to be one which is already well-worn.
The consequences of previous warnings have not resulted in any change; instead performance has continued to fall. Does this mean
There are few Labour ideas that garner any Conservative support these days, but the ‘alternative’ HS2 route, via Heathrow, has cer- tainly sparked interest.
Some suggest the alternative route could provide a compromise be- tween those who desperately op- pose cutting through the Chilterns and those who are pressing for a faster connection between London and Birmingham.
But there is still much research that needs to be carried out and several questions to be answered before this could be a viable alter- native route.
The Bow Group’s cost estimate of the comparative route suggests it could save £1.7bn. If this is entire- ly due to leaving the cost of the sta- tion at Heathrow to be covered by private investors, then it could be argued that the original line could save money in a similar way.
Additionally, the London-Bir- mingham journey time is esti- mated to be a minute faster than the Government’s plans. Of course every second counts when you are attempting to build a line whose benefits rely entirely on speed, but this figure is so small it could eas- ily be attributed to a miscalcula- tion – and the vital issue of capac-
ity has not been addressed to the same extent.
The Government seems intent on sticking to its plans, just mitigat- ing some of the problems with the existing route to try to appease its opponents, rather than a complete change of route – unless Greening is planning a real New Year sur- prise.
November 25 Old or new?
A new report from the Campaign for Better Transport warns against the temptation to focus on large scale new road projects to stimu- late economic growth.
They suggest that investment should concern existing trans- port networks, and short term improvements to create jobs and provide wider benefits to society and the environment.
The decision whether to spend on creating something new or upgrading something old can de- pend on several factors. There will always be infrastructure and schemes which could benefit from revamping, but equally there are so many innovative ideas for new projects which could revolutionise our country in a way that mod- ernisation of existing frameworks could never achieve.
Focusing on a wide range of fac- tors can allow the best decisions to be made regarding the direction of spending. In this way, the com- bination of advantages and disad- vantages can be clearly weighed against each other.
Concentrating on working with what we’ve already got is some- times, but not always, the right form of action to take.
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14 | rail technology magazine Dec/Jan 12
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