I’ve been living on the other side of the world for several years and arrived back in the UK this evening for a family visit.
I got to Manchester Airport Station and missed the 18:16 by seconds. The next four trains heading towards Preston are cancelled.
Lovely welcome home after a 16 hour flight.
Welcome back
@rrapynot .
Sorry to hear that you were apparently affected by a Network Rail points failure that impacted on Northern.
It won't be much consolation but at least funding for Network Rail has been increasing.
As part of the Periodic Review 2018 (PR18)/Control Period 6 (CP6) process the Office of Rail and Road had advised the DfT that a bow wave of deferred renewals was building up in CP5. This advice was accepted.
When Chris Grayling MP gave the Statement of Funds Available for CP6 (in October 2017 but covering 2019-24) it allowed for increased maintenance and renewal expenditure. The total Statement Of Funds Available (SOFA) was £47,900,000,000. Of this £34,700,000,000 would be paid as Network Grant.
Splitting the PR18 Determination down to LNW Route, Maintenance was allowed £1,989,000,000 for 2019-24 (up from only £1,664,000,000 in CP5) There was specific mention of £12,400,000 for additional switch and crossing heavy refurbishment. Renewals were allowed £3,203,000,000 (up from £2,918,000,000 in CP5). All figures at 2017/18 prices.
There are trajectories for year-on-year reductions in Service Affecting Failures and improvements in efficiency.
[Data from ORR website.]
Network Rail and Northern have been nationalised/publicly controlled for quite a while now but obviously things like covid, strikes and extreme weather haven't helped in the long task of improving performance.