Surely though if the DfT has specified 3tph in the GWR franchise agreement, then Network Rail stump up the cash from their own budget which is ultimately paid for by DfT grant. End of.
The DfT pay for a steady state railway and certain specified improvements. If it's not specified, it's not in the budget.
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So was the changes in level cross requirements new legislation that was only thought of after the franchise was awarded?
No - no new legislation in that respect
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Indeed, and thanks for the note. However, are we really now in a position where a 3tph service is considered significantly more risky than 2?! I hark back to my point that the possible level of complacency engendered by less frequent trains may easily outweigh the actual risks of collision with a 1 tph service increase. I appreciate that the NDL may, or may not, see a speed reduction as risk mitigation, but my common sense antenna quivers a lot at this! I would also have hoped that the necessary mitigations would have been investigated when the service increase was mooted and set in franchise agreement stone (perhaps they are already known but unfunded), rather than apparently just drift on like this. Is there, I wonder, a parallel model that examines road traffic volumes and insists on speed reduction and/or expensive regime changes? My local example is the Betchworth level crossing, where the road traffic is now equivalent to a major 'A' road (it is a 'B' road) and has increased dramatically over the years, but with the 40mph speed limit having remained unchanged.
I'm afraid it's not like that, rightly or wrongly.
Firstly, an increase from 2tph to 3tph (actually 4tph to 6tph across the crossing) is a 50% increase in risk. That is very significant. It can tip some crossings into the 'higher risk' category where extra mitigations must be applied.
Secondly, I have never known an operator or prospective franchisee take into account level crossing mitigation when proposing a new service. It's not their problem (until they can't run the service, at which point they just blame NR).
Thirdly, thesame risk model does take into account changes to road traffic. However, level crossing risk is entirely owned by NR, so if road traffic doubles, and the risk doubles, it is up to NR to sort it. It might not seem right, but that's how it is.
A long time ago, in a job far, far away, I had to stop (or more correctly, postpone) a proposed service improvement as Level Crossing risk had not been considered. The line in question had scores of crossings, and there were incidents on them frequently (several times a year) many of which resulted in injuries to crossing users. Indeed the company had been in court on more than one occasion regarding these incidents. There was no funding from the operator or the service specifier to improve the level crossings. It was going to cost over £50k just to reassess them, let alone do any work. Why would I put the company and myself at further risk, and let the operator sit back and take all the credit and the extra revenue?