Cuts to investment in rail infrastructure.

[Wolfie]

The BBC are reporting that hidden in the small print of the Chancellor's spending announcement was a cut of £1Bn (nearly 10%) in rail infrastructure investment.

Government to cut £1bn from rail budget

The cut comes at a time when the industry is suffering from low passenger numbers due to the pandemic.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Jozhua]

It's a bit silly really. Investment in infrastructure is a good idea - much better than supporting the economy out of a recession by having people on the dole.

The rail sector is vital for our fight against pollution, climate change, wildlife destruction, road traffic accidents, congestion, recession, etc.

£9bn is an improvement on previous years I believe, but not enough to compensate for the many years wasted doing nothing. A rolling electrification programme still seems very far away, despite the obvious benefits. The extra £1bn to infrastructure would have helped go towards making the railways operationally more self sufficient, something that is very important long term.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Arguably, it will just go to fund the £1bn overspend on Crossrail (not by NR).
NR also doesn't always spend its budget because of delays in project planning and signing off delivery contracts.
There's also the comment about "concentrating on NPR and Beeching reopenings".

 

[CdBrux]

The extra £1bn to infrastructure would have helped go towards making the railways operationally more self sufficient, something that is very important long term.

I would assume that very much depends on what it would have been spent on!

 

[Senex]

Arguably, it will just go to fund the £1bn overspend on Crossrail (not by NR).
NR also doesn't always spend its budget because of delays in project planning and signing off delivery contracts.
There's also the comment about "concentrating on NPR and Beeching reopenings".

Perhaps another clever way to make sure London gets its money whilst it's cheese-paring for the rest of England — certainly nomimally a loan, but a loan can always be written off when they have diffciulties in repaying.
But it's also true that work which does require long-term planning etc fits in very badly with Britain's short-term political horizons, whether railways, roads, or other major infrastructure projects.

 

[Cardiff123]

It's always good when the government's and it's ministers rhetoric of 'build back better' and of a 'green recovery' (in which the rail industry will play a vital role) is matched by government's actions.

No doubt the extremely carbon friendly, environmentally friendly, 'green' £27bn road building program will remain unaffected.

 

[30907]

Related thread here:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...hould-the-cutbacks-occur.211922/#post-4891927

 

[Norm_D_Ploom]

Was always coming. First of many departments to have spending cut to pay for the pandemic?

 

[Domh245]

First of many departments to have spending cut to pay for the pandemic?

Not quite the first - D.f.International Development (now part of foreign & commonwealth office) was the first, or at least most high profile of this first round of cuts

 

[ABB125]

No doubt the extremely carbon friendly, environmentally friendly, 'green' £27bn road building program will remain unaffected.

It's not £27 billion for road building, it includes maintenance, safety improvements etc. I'm not sure how much of it is for new build, but I think I read in another thread on here that it's around £14 billion. Around half of which will be spent on the Lower Thames Crossing. And the road network is much more important to the economy than the railways, whatever some people might want to believe.

Anyway, I think that if £1 billion or so of savings can be found through delaying rail schemes whose purpose can be questioned by the significant reduction in passenger numbers, that's a sensible course to take, so long as the scheme can be reinstated when passenger numbers rise again.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It will probably impact routine upgrades which have no special PR or political impact.
NPR and reopening a few Beeching lines will come before things like Bristol/Oxford electrification or resignalling the northern WCML.
Even digital signalling may be harder to progress now.
The ECML upgrades in progress might just have got away with it.

 

[yorkie]

Related thread here:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/cp6-funding-cut-by-£1bn-where-should-the-cutbacks-occur.211922/#post-4891927

Good point.

Just to remind everyone that if anyone wishes to post any speculative ideas/suggestions to please use the appropriate forum area

Here are links to a couple of relevant threads:

• https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/cp6-funding-cut-by-£1bn-where-should-the-cutbacks-occur.211922
• https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/should-we-borrow-more-what-will-happen-to-interest-rates.211940/

 

[Wolfie]

Not quite the first - D.f.International Development (now part of foreign & commonwealth office) was the first, or at least most high profile of this first round of cuts

Lots of rumblings that HMG will lose a vote in the Commons on that one.

 

[peters]

It's a bit silly really. Investment in infrastructure is a good idea - much better than supporting the economy out of a recession by having people on the dole.

And wasn't the PM saying a few weeks ago that the government is committed to infrastructure projects as they create much needed jobs?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think it's as bad as it could have been. It's not (for example) mass line closures.

 

[geoffk]

It would be good to have an independent investigation into why infrastructure costs comparatively so much more than neighbouring developed countries. Land costs are extortionate and all the Risk Assessments/H&S measures, Method Statements, Impact Statements cost a fortune before even starting work. I have the impression that materials and procurement costs are much higher than they should be. Some years ago the DfT commissioned a report by management consultant Arthur D. Little "Risk aversion in the UK rail industry", which confirmed what we knew already, that the industry had become highly risk averse and that safety-related decisions were excessively cautious. The report included comparisons with Europe and Japan. Nothing more seems to have been heard of that report. Was it filed in the "too difficult" drawer? I'm posting this because a £1bn cut in the budget could be matched by achieving a lower cost base.

 

[yorkie]

It would be good to have an independent investigation into why infrastructure costs comparatively so much more than neighbouring developed countries...

See: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/bionic-duckweed-rears-its-ugly-head-again.211240/#post-4863920

 

[Domh245]

I don't think it's as bad as it could have been. It's not (for example) mass line closures.

This is true, but I'd be surprised if a loss of £1bn from the improvements budget is the full extent of cost cutting for the railway we see.

Fair point. I would be unsurprised, for example, to see widespread DOO making a reappearance.

Quite. The ERMAs are still unpublished, and during transport questions yesterday, Heaton Harris had this to say:

I am not sure that my officials would ever do anything shifty whatever. I completely understand and appreciate that my hon. Friend’s Committee wishes to see the redacted emergency recovery measures agreements as soon as practicable, but in the second part of his question he outlined the reason why the redaction of the documents is so important: there are extremely sensitive commercial negotiations ongoing at this point. He has my commitment that as soon as practicable, as we did with the emergency measures agreements before them, we will publish these documents and give them to his Committee.

 

[BigVern]

It will probably impact routine upgrades which have no special PR or political impact.
NPR and reopening a few Beeching lines will come before things like Bristol/Oxford electrification or resignalling the northern WCML.
Even digital signalling may be harder to progress now.
The ECML upgrades in progress might just have got away with it.

Will this affect the Crewe re-signalling project?
Any delays there could affect work associated with the arrival of HS2 Phase 2A and the Crewe Hub regeneration project.

 

[swt_passenger]

Will this affect the Crewe re-signalling project?
Any delays there could affect work associated with the arrival of HS2 Phase 2A and the Crewe Hub regeneration project.

Crewe resignalling is not an enhancement project, at least it isn’t mentioned in the NR June 2020 summary.

 

[21C101]

It would be good to have an independent investigation into why infrastructure costs comparatively so much more than neighbouring developed countries. Land costs are extortionate and all the Risk Assessments/H&S measures, Method Statements, Impact Statements cost a fortune before even starting work. I have the impression that materials and procurement costs are much higher than they should be. Some years ago the DfT commissioned a report by management consultant Arthur D. Little "Risk aversion in the UK rail industry", which confirmed what we knew already, that the industry had become highly risk averse and that safety-related decisions were excessively cautious. The report included comparisons with Europe and Japan. Nothing more seems to have been heard of that report. Was it filed in the "too difficult" drawer? I'm posting this because a £1bn cut in the budget could be matched by achieving a lower cost base.

The problem is that while for some things they are excessively cautious, for other things the caution is right and proper and the structure of the post privatisation industry makes it very difficult to distinguish with things like Hatfield happening when you get it wrong.

To my mind it is the inevitable result of the balkanisation of the industry with senior managers no longer career railwaymen who have experienced all aspects of the industry on their way up and staff no longer locally based career railwaymen who have spent their career on a local patch and know it like the back of their hand.

Without this in depth and local knowledge you are left with no choice other than to be cautious, especially in the current legal climate where there is no such thing as an accident and someone must go to prison however blameless the error.

 

[The Planner]

Crewe resignalling is not an enhancement project, at least it isn’t mentioned in the NR June 2020 summary.

Depends which bit, some is replacement to modern standards, some is to allow for HS2.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Will this affect the Crewe re-signalling project?
Any delays there could affect work associated with the arrival of HS2 Phase 2A and the Crewe Hub regeneration project.

Well, I suspect anything HS2 and NPR related will go ahead, but I expect the scope of the NR work will be reviewed.
I'm really thinking of NR's more general route upgrades for things like replacing ageing signalling (where ETCS is now beginning to appear as the best solution).
You can also list a number of recent NR enhancement projects which in hindsight were not needed, at least not yet - like the Ordsall Curve and a couple of ECML flyovers.
Doubling/quadrupling projects are another likely cut, with growth off the agenda for a while.
Where electrification sits in all this is a key issue.
The cuts are to the CP6 enhancements budget (2019-24).
It will be 2023 before CP7 planning starts (assuming NR is still constituted as it is now), which is probably when most of the Crewe work will be done.

 

[swt_passenger]

Depends which bit, some is replacement to modern standards, some is to allow for HS2.

Presumably the HS2 related stuff is a separate budget though?
But also, isn’t replacement to modern standards supposed to be covered by renewals?

 

[The Planner]

Presumably the HS2 related stuff is a separate budget though?
But also, isn’t replacement to modern standards supposed to be covered by renewals?

Crewe is complicated in that regard, it overlaps.

 

[InOban]

It occurs to me, and I am no supporter of this government, that the overrun of cp5 projects into cp6, combined with the effects of Covid19, have led to a reassessment of what NR can deliver in the rest of cp6?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

It occurs to me, and I am no supporter of this government, that the overrun of cp5 projects into cp6, combined with the effects of Covid19, have led to a reassessment of what NR can deliver in the rest of cp6?

Given the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline document hasn't been refreshed in over 13 months and that only a couple of projects have been mentioned since then tells me NR haven't been instructed to move any projects beyond there current phase so there development and design is probably falling behind so many projects way off being shovel ready so I concur with you that this probably suits all concerned.

 

[HSTEd]

I have no confidence that this money would be well spent, so I don't really mourn it's loss.

The railway still seems to think its the 90s, public largesse is unlimited and it can have anything it wants whenever it wants.

 

[Jozhua]

It's always good when the government's and it's ministers rhetoric of 'build back better' and of a 'green recovery' (in which the rail industry will play a vital role) is matched by government's actions.

No doubt the extremely carbon friendly, environmentally friendly, 'green' £27bn road building program will remain unaffected.

And wasn't the PM saying a few weeks ago that the government is committed to infrastructure projects as they create much needed jobs?

Indeed, everything the government says it will do, it does the exact opposite in action.

I don't think it's as bad as it could have been. It's not (for example) mass line closures.

Unfortunately, that is setting the bar very low. Not like they haven't already punished public transport users for following the rules and staying at home - indeed, TFL has had onerous restrictions put on them in exchange for a "bailout".

Presumably the HS2 related stuff is a separate budget though?
But also, isn’t replacement to modern standards supposed to be covered by renewals?

I think HS2 is included in a separate budget - fortunately.

I have no confidence that this money would be well spent, so I don't really mourn it's loss.

The railway still seems to think its the 90s, public largesse is unlimited and it can have anything it wants whenever it wants.

I think the money could be well spent if there was a more cohesive strategy from the DafT. The railway is almost entirely run by the DafT at this point, and has been for pretty much the whole of franchising.

Unfortunately, with the unstable funding stream coming from DafT and the Treasury, who believe it is their job to horde treasures like the fabled dragons, it is difficult for Network Rail and private sector partners to do things effectively. Parts and supply chains cannot be guaranteed over a number of years and indeed the industry faces a severe skills shortage, due to the constant bleeding of skilled labour during the "bust" part of the boom/bust cycle. The inconsistent funding coming from government is said to contribute an extra 1/3rd to costs for all infrastructure projects.

The government needs to set out a plan, and here's the important part, ACTUALLY STICK TO IT! I'm absolutely fed up of constant empty promises and outright lying that is coming out of Westminster right now, it's even worse than it has been for the past few years. At least Grayling was openly shocking, unlike Shapps who pretends to care, yet does absolutely nothing concrete to back it up.

This government needs to decide if it wants the private sector to lead or not. Because right now, we have a serious issue, where entire industries are stuck in limbo, private companies unable to step in and fulfill market demand, yet a government relentlessly holding on to the shackles, but refusing to commit any proper funding or long term plans.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Indeed, everything the government says it will do, it does the exact opposite in action.

Unfortunately, that is setting the bar very low. Not like they haven't already punished public transport users for following the rules and staying at home - indeed, TFL has had onerous restrictions put on them in exchange for a "bailout".

I think HS2 is included in a separate budget - fortunately.

I think the money could be well spent if there was a more cohesive strategy from the DafT. The railway is almost entirely run by the DafT at this point, and has been for pretty much the whole of franchising.

Unfortunately, with the unstable funding stream coming from DafT and the Treasury, who believe it is their job to horde treasures like the fabled dragons, it is difficult for Network Rail and private sector partners to do things effectively. Parts and supply chains cannot be guaranteed over a number of years and indeed the industry faces a severe skills shortage, due to the constant bleeding of skilled labour during the "bust" part of the boom/bust cycle. The inconsistent funding coming from government is said to contribute an extra 1/3rd to costs for all infrastructure projects.

The government needs to set out a plan, and here's the important part, ACTUALLY STICK TO IT! I'm absolutely fed up of constant empty promises and outright lying that is coming out of Westminster right now, it's even worse than it has been for the past few years. At least Grayling was openly shocking, unlike Shapps who pretends to care, yet does absolutely nothing concrete to back it up.

This government needs to decide if it wants the private sector to lead or not. Because right now, we have a serious issue, where entire industries are stuck in limbo, private companies unable to step in and fulfill market demand, yet a government relentlessly holding on to the shackles, but refusing to commit any proper funding or long term plans.

NR hardly gave themselves any credibility they could deliver big projects after the GW Electrification fiasco and that was just one project that got exposed. Almost every project is overspent and thats despite the vast army of support staff that the project function carry that good old BR managed to do with out. They have estimators, value management teams, risk management teams, project controls, planners often sourced from consultancies on day rates that will make your eyes water and they still couldn't keep control of projects (Crossrail was infected with the same ethos as well and many NR people migrated there and now have moved onto HS2).
The GRIP process facilitated this largesse and consigned getting things done to a secondary outcome so im delighted to see it consigned to the bin and replaced with something that should allow the railway spirit of getting things done to flourish again as well costing in less. Project Speed is just what is needed but it will take a while to change out the GRIP culture so Haines is right to target a few projects that showcase what the industry can do when it has the will.