jyte
Member
It's widely said that the combination of fines paid to operators and costs that arose after the Hatfield Rail Crash, as well as the spiralling costs of the West Coast Railway Modernisation Programme, were what forced Railtrack into administration in 2001, 7 years after it was created.
I was wondering (based partly on the difficulties with the WCRM) if Railtrack managed to take any upgrades or large scale renewal schemes from conception to completion in those 7 years. It seems to have inherited a fair few things that BR started or had done a lot of the ground work on already (TPWS and the Manchester Airport Branch) and finished those, and conversely started a few things which were later finished off by Network Rail (the WCRM being the 'big' one I can think of).
But after about 20-30 minutes of looking I can't find anything that it took from conception to completion. I know railway timescales move pretty glacially and 7 years is not a long time period especially when it comes to infrastructure projects, but I was wondering if anyone could point out any upgrade or large scale renewal projects Railtrack managed whilst it existed?
I was wondering (based partly on the difficulties with the WCRM) if Railtrack managed to take any upgrades or large scale renewal schemes from conception to completion in those 7 years. It seems to have inherited a fair few things that BR started or had done a lot of the ground work on already (TPWS and the Manchester Airport Branch) and finished those, and conversely started a few things which were later finished off by Network Rail (the WCRM being the 'big' one I can think of).
But after about 20-30 minutes of looking I can't find anything that it took from conception to completion. I know railway timescales move pretty glacially and 7 years is not a long time period especially when it comes to infrastructure projects, but I was wondering if anyone could point out any upgrade or large scale renewal projects Railtrack managed whilst it existed?