Philip Hammond leaves Transport in ‘mini-reshuffle’

From: Rail News.co.uk

THE TRANSPORT SECRETARY Philip Hammond is moving to the Ministry of Defence, following the resignation of defence secretary Liam Fox. His replacement is Putney MP Justine Greening.

Mr Hammond has been in the top political job at the Department for Transport since the election in May 2010, and has overseen the launch of the controversial McNulty report into railway ‘value for money’ as well as supporting higher rises in train fares and the construction of High Speed Two, which is set to be the first domestic High Speed line in Britain.

He has also presided over and backed the award of the £1.4 billion Thameslink rolling stock contract to German-owned Siemens — a move which has been bitterly criticised in some quarters, particularly in the East Midlands where the losers Bombardier would have built the fleet of 300 trains.

He leaves as Network Rail is poised to move into a new era, with devolution of day-to-day management to route level due to take place on 14 November.

This change is being accompanied by hopes that Network Rail’s new route managing directors will be able to contain costs more effectively, particularly as the routes will be financially compared with each other over time through a system of benchmarking.

Mr Hammond will be handing the draft of a forthcoming railway White Paper to his successor.

His most controversial remark was probably his description of railway travel as often being a ‘rich man’s toy’, when he was being questioned by the House of Commons Transport Select Committee a few weeks ago.

“It won’t happen again”, promises Network Rail after £80k fine

From: Safety & Health Practitioner
Network Rail has been fined £80,000 and ordered to pay full costs of £32,000 after a train hit a collapsed public footbridge and came off the rails, injuring the train driver and all the passengers on board.

Leicester Crown Court, sitting on 3 October, heard that on 1 February 2008, a lorry delivering bulk material in darkness at 6am to a Network-Rail construction site near Barrow upon Soar station struck a footbridge over the railway with its upraised tipper, causing the bridge to collapse and block the rail line. A short while later, a train travelling from Nottingham to Norwich at 65 mph crashed into the debris and derailed.

The six passengers on the train suffered shock and minor injuries, while the train driver had to be freed from his cab by emergency services and sustained bruising, cuts and cracked ribs.

An investigation by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) found that Network Rail had failed to properly plan, manage, and supervise deliveries of ballast to its worksite. In this instance, the lorry had been allowed to drive along the site with its tipper body not fully lowered after emptying its load.

Commenting on the case, Allan Spence, ORR’s deputy chief inspector of railways said: “Network Rail’s poor planning and management of the construction site at Barrow upon Soar station placed the public, passengers and railway staff in great danger.

“Given the circumstances, it is very fortunate that no one on the train was seriously injured and that no one was crossing the footbridge when it collapsed.

“It is essential that incidents such as this never happen again. Since the time of this accident, Network Rail has made significant progress, acting on our recommendations to improve safety at its construction sites.”

Network Rail was fined £40,000 on each count for breaching the Health & Safety at Work act 1974 by failing to ensure the safety of employees and non-employees. A third charge of breaching the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 by failing to effectively plan, organise and control preventive and protective measures, did not carry a fine.  Network Rail had previously pleaded guilty to all three charges at Loughborough Magistrates’ Court.

After the sentencing, a spokesperson for Network Rail said: “Network Rail accepts that it should have done more to have prevented this accident. We did carry out risk assessments at the time, but we did not foresee the possibility of a lorry driver leaving site and failing to lower his tipper for several hundred yards – this is what happened and we should have done more.
 
“We have changed the way we carry out such work since the accident and passengers can be confident it won’t happen again.”

Saturday Night @ The Station (aka Football Fans and Dry Trains)

Now I’ve had time to recover, I can fill you in on events at the work last night.  I will however only give you the highlights so you won’t get bored with the “normal” stuff.

I managed to snag a rare overtime opportunity in connection with the Manchester FA Cup Semi Final at Wembley.

The team was split into two elements ticket checkers and booze busters.  The former is self explainatory whereas the latter needs a little bit of a bio.  The definition of a booze buster is a member (or members) of staff asking people if they are carrying alcohol and if they are, removing it from their possession (with Police help if necessary).  This is all well and good but some football fans are devious bastards people who will go to great lengths to hide their stash, even putting it into their childrens backpacks.

Irritations of the shift:

“Official” Charter Trains on adjacent platforms to our scheduled services causing us to delay boarding and change platforms. (Many thanks to the MCFC stewards for their help, patience and understanding)

Two 16 year old “men” approaching me with child tickets and when asked how old they were replying “15 mate”, then giving their dates of birth as January 2005.  This is normally not that bad but they refused to provide ID or pay the difference to the adult fare until the Police intervened. (Thanks BTP)

A woman approaching me with a wrongly routed ticket flatly refusing to move off of the platform or pay the excess to allow her to travel. (she eventually left after being “persuaded” by a helpful Man Utd fan)

The Good Bits:

Hilarious scene of several RPO’s doing impressions of Carl Lewis to beat passengers to a train after a (very) late platform change.

Being chatted up by a rather beautiful young lady while helping her board her train.

The superb banter between the RPO’s, Management & BTP Officers on duty.

All in all it was a good shift with very little trouble.  Just goes to prove that not all football fans are animals, I also include in this the Aston Villa, Brighton & Millwall fans travelling home both ways through the station.