'Factory on wheels' delays rail electrification by a year
By Allan Urry Reporter, File on 4
It was to be Network Rail's £40m answer to one of its biggest challenges - turning Brunel's Great Western railway line electric to allow faster, longer and greener trains to run from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads and beyond to Wales.
Instead, the under-performance of the High Output Plant System, a factory train made up of 23 vehicles, has, according to rail observers, made a big contribution to Network Rail falling at least a year behind schedule and going £900m over budget on the Great Western electrification project.
Yet the train was supposed to make the job of erecting thousands of electrification masts much easier. Two years ago, Network Rail was boasting about how it would slash years off the project.
Network Rail would not comment on the performance of the train, but admitted there had been "hiccups" on what is the first major rail electrification project in the UK for a generation. Rail insiders paint a more calamitous picture.
So what's gone wrong with the Hops train - and what role has it played in Network Rail's current woes?
Wiring Problem
The HOPS train has been described as a 'factory on wheels'
"The whole electrification project for the Great Western line was really based on the High Output train because of the amount of work it could do so much more quickly," said rail journalist Tony Miles.
"The two went hand-in-hand and the completion date was all really based on working out how many miles this high output train would do every day. And the moment it couldn't do that work it was obvious everything was going to fall apart."
The Hops train was supposed to dig holes, put up overhead wire supports, fill the holes with concrete and hang the wires - at the rate of about a mile each night.
Engineering insiders told the BBC that a newly designed wiring system did not match the specification of the holes the Hops train was designed to dig and that a new design of pile-tubes hammered into the ground to house the thousands of electrification masts - went in too deep after ground surveys were missed.
But, according to Roger Ford of Modern Railways magazine, even where the Hops train has managed to dig holes, it has damaged existing signalling cables. For him, the recent decision to "reset" Network Rail's £38bn maintenance and enhancement programme reveals the size of Network Rail's problems.
"It's short on experienced engineers and experienced operators - people who know how to run a railway. One of the problems is we have a lot of people who run Network Rail who know nothing about railways," he said. "I think we just lost the focus on the operational railway."
Network Rail said the scale and complexity of the work on the Great Western line - some 14,000 electrification masts need to be erected - has presented them with "unique challenges". So far, they had dug some 2,000 holes for the masts and erected 600 masts, with the pace increasing every day.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLaughlin has told Parliament that Network Rail must now "pause" its other big projects - including the politically charged electrification of lines in the north of England and the Midlands - and concentrate its efforts on getting the electrification of the Great Western right.
If they go around a tightly curved platform the middle bit will scrape on the platform edge - it's simple physicsTony Miles, Rail Journalist
But Louise Ellman, who chairs the Transport Select Committee, questions whether the other projects will get done at all.
"Costs have escalated, particularly on the Great Western line where the costs have now trebled, and it seems to be that other programmes might lose out as a result," she said.
"What that means in practice is that the work that was planned across the North to electrify the line from Manchester to Leeds and Hull, appears to be paused indefinitely and major works have been stopped on the Midland Mainline - so it's now a big question mark on just what's going to proceed and when."
But, for rail journalists like Tony Miles, just getting the Hops train out of its specially built shed in Swindon - known as the Hoob, or High Output Operating Base - doesn't mean the Great Western electrification is back on solid ground yet.
'Simple physics'
Network Rail has so far sunk 600 electrification masts: there are some 14,000 needed
Obstacles ahead on the Great Western line include untangling the signal, track and electrics around the listed Bristol Temple Meads station in Bristol - not least because the new inter-city trains bought by the government for this line are too long for Brunel's curved platforms.
"It was decided by the Department for Transport that the new trains will be 26m long per vehicle and our railways are built for 23m long," said Tony Miles. "So if they go around a tightly curved platform the middle bit will scrape on the platform edge. It's simple physics."
The Department for Transport said it was always known that work would be required on the platforms at Bristol Temple Meads to provide the clearance for the new trains - something that was factored into the plans at the start of the project and was part of the overall package of improvements on the line.
The department also assured the BBC that £38bn is still available to make the improvements needed on the UK's railways and said Network Rail had already delivered some improvements.
Network Rail admitted some of their plans for big projects like the Great Western were "overly optimistic", but would work with its new chairman to re-plan the programme in the next few months.
"On the big items like electrification and capital projects, it was always part of the regulatory process that the costs and programme would be revisited as projects became properly defined," said Network Rail chief executive Mark Carne.
"Unfortunately when these reviews have occurred, the more detailed project costs have been higher than assumed at the earliest stages of definition. As a result, the total enhancement programme cost now exceeds the available five-year budget. Some projects are also delayed beyond the original dates."
Off track: Network Rail on BBC Radio 4's File on 4 is available to listen to after transmission on Tuesday 7 July at 20:00.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33425743
) and used to spend saturday mornings sitting in the box watching him work. great fun.
