Nottingham59
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Impressive progress. Are there any estimates of how much will this repair operation cost?
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Nuneham Viaduct shut - Didcot- Oxford
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I imagine there are some, but the budget manager hasn't come out from under the desk yet...
What are you going to do with this information when you get it?
Will you say "We shouldn't have spent all this money mending this bridge" ?
Or maybe "Well that was money well spent, then".
Or what?
There will be more show-stoppers like this one waiting in the wings - the system is a hundred plus years old. It won't last forever. Main lines like this one will be affected. If the country needs a railway system then it (that is to say the country as a whole) must be ready for these 'unseens'.
Will you say "We shouldn't have spent all this money mending this bridge" ?
Or maybe "Well that was money well spent, then".
Or what?
There will be more show-stoppers like this one waiting in the wings - the system is a hundred plus years old. It won't last forever. Main lines like this one will be affected. If the country needs a railway system then it (that is to say the country as a whole) must be ready for these 'unseens'.
In theory, it would be to compare it to other works and see whether public money has been spent wisely in the run up to the failure.
There are unforeseen issues, but that requires them not to have been foreseen. However this bridge was being monitored for a year or so, therefore it was very much a foreseen problem. The discussion (which I suspect will be taking place behind closed doors) is whether or not spending a little bit of money a little bit earlier may have been possible to save from the emergency (and therefore much greater) expense.
This would include reviewing the reporting, monitoring, design/tendering and engineering access processes to determine what might have been done differently to allow a much more cost-effective repair. Equally consideration will need to take in whether such changes have disbenefits in other circumstances.
£7-10M according to #732. It struck me as cheap too.
It was known that the abutment was questionable, but I suspect there are a heck of a lot of questionable abutments across the country. Some of them might fail next year, some of them may hang on for decades with minor interventions. Replacing an abutment is a very disruprive process, so there is a question of at what point do you "bite the bullet". Too early and you end up replacing stuff that doesn't actually need replacing, too late and you end up forced to close the line before you are ready to start the replacement work.
In this case, they did try an intervention (injection grouting) to stabilise the abutment, but the problem continued to get worse.
Network rail certainly has problems with failing to "do the maintenance" as can be seen from the foliage growing out of buildings all over the network, but I don't think that is relevant to this case.
I think the question of whether or not NR did the necessary maintenance and inspections is very relevant to this case. It's very possible that this is just an unlucky movement caused by localised weather events, but it's also possible that NR was failing to take actions earlier that would have seriously mitigated the impact of the slip, and made the attempted repair more likely to succeed.
HOWEVER, that's not a decision any of us can reach, because we don't have the full set of reports and monitoring decisions in front of us.
The Planner
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That won't factor in the compensation to operators.
Class15
Established Member
Are we on track for June 10?
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
No long inquiries / committees or politicans changing the design at the last minute are there?
It's purely and simply the railway getting on and doing what it needs to do with people who know what they're doing involved. That always keeps the costs down...
Nottingham59
Established Member
That depends on what the answer is, doesn't it?
I have a general ongoing interest in the cost of railway infrastructure work. And I was idly wondering how the rebuilding of a 20m viaduct and its abutment compared to the cost of other projects.
So around the cost of just 40 metres of HS2 phase 1 (£44Bn for 215km at 2019 prices).
The two projects cannot reasonably be compared though because HS2's costs include land purchase and legal fees.
DelW
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I'm not sure I'm looking at what you meant, but the items behind the top left corner of the Volvo's counterweight look like modular staircases with handrails, providing pedestrian access up the side of the embankment.
GRALISTAIR
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10/10
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Compared to £6M for the proposed 'stunning' new footbridge at Garforth,
it's the bargain of the century!
MARK
GRALISTAIR
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Yep, that was what I was cynically thinking too!Compared to £6M for the proposed 'stunning' new footbridge at Garforth,
it's the bargain of the century!
MARK
Hellzapoppin
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IIRC any cost over £10m is paid for from insurance.
WilloughbyGC
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Does make you think though. If enhancements or renewals were under the same time pressure as NR are under at Nuneham Viaduct we might make rail projects affordable and attractive to politicians again. E.g. 'you can have a new footbridge at Garforth again but it must be delivered in 6 months and below £xx cost', I bet prices and timescales would rapidly come down, avoid several rounds of consultancy stages, AND remove the opportunity for politicians to change their minds on what they want.
The simple reality is that after the next election Rachel Reeves or Jeremy Hunt will have very little money to spend, face multiple competing demands, and will want projects than can deliver quickly - or at least before they retire. Rail project costs in the UK, as another thread is exploring, are totally out of control compared to comparable European countries and unless we get our house in order we are in serious trouble.
An emergency repair won't be able to make any changes though - it will be put back exactly as it was (or should have been according to the published Sectional Appendix/plans etc). It therefore still has the grandfather rights and (much of) the original drawing to use to make the repair design.
Garforth footbridge won't have involved many consultancy stages (it's a fairly obvious rationale), and a big investment like a station or new line will still need the consultancy stages to justify the additional operational costs. If it was so much cheaper to let infrastructure be managed to failure the swoop in and tie in an upgrade, you'd see people using that strategy a hell of a lot more.
If you want to bring project costs down, you need to get the law changed so that the amount of feasibility and impact studies done are reduced, and then to convince politicians to give up power. Both things will require a far more fundamental change to happen first: the electoral success of the majority of politicians must require people to be in favour of building things and against those who block development.
I always thought that in the days of BR its assets were not insured as the premiums would be astronomical. Who's going to insure the Forth Bridge? I assumed this continued under Network Rail.
Snow1964
Established Member
Some huge organisations don't insure their assets, but have catastrophe insurance, for massive disaster and associated public liability. With huge excesses (think nearer £25-250m)
BR would presumably have had an element of self-insurance as well.
It also reduces the liability on government books. Similar reasons justified the sale of the railway arches a few years ago (as well as giving another income stream to property buddies).
Although this really depends what they are insuring. I highly doubt insurance of any kind would cover many of the issues on the railway, since no insurance covers a lack or maintenance or wear and tear (Since everything will fall apart some day)
Heaven forbid that someone is just curious.
Just curious and nothing else? No such thing! I'm curious because - - - something or other.
I want to compare it with - set it against - understand it in the context of - - - etc.
For example, I quote post 797 above: "Compared to £6M for the proposed 'stunning' new footbridge at Garforth, "
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