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Overnight the cost of modernising and upgrading the WCML has more than doubled. A billion here and a billion there soon adds up to a serious project
It is now quite clear that until Chris Green came on the scene no one in Railtrack, or Virgin Trains for that matter, realised that the West Coast Route Modernisation (WCRM) was a project going nowhere slowly. Readers of this column, of course, had seen it coming for months. Indeed, at the Railway Writers' Millennium awards dinner before Christmas I was voted ‘Bore of the decade' for my WCML coverage.
Serendipitously, just as Chris Green's bombardment of Railtrack began, Robin Gisby, then Railtrack's head of freight, was standing in as acting Commercial Director. And when the WCRM came up at the first Board meeting, he realised that big trouble was brewing.
As a first stage, he managed to produce the schedule of work for Phase 1 (Core Investment Programme (CIP) plus Passenger Upgrade 1) which Railtrack was contractually bound to give Virgin Trains – albeit in the nick of time. And for his pains he was taken off freight and given responsibility for ??, including the WCML.
Even more serendipitously Railtrack had appointed Tony Fletcher, an experienced project manager, as General Manager responsible for the WCRM project (odd title that). And Mr Fletcher has since achieved an amazing amount in a very short time.
But, in getting to grips with the project it became clear that the scope of work, especially to meet capacity commitments under PUG2 had been underestimated. Ditto the likely timescale for the moving block signalling (see below)
This major re-evaluation of the WCRM resulted in the revelation in December that the price of the Core Investment Programme(CIP) plus the two passenger upgrades (PUG), plus further work to meet the capacity commitments under Passenger Upgrade 2 had escalated to £5.8billion from the previous £2.2billion for the CIP plus PUGs 1 and 2.
Strictly speaking, the cost has only (only!) increased to £4.8billion, because the spare billion represents a further Capacity Upgrade to meet commitments made to other users of the WCML. I am calling this CUG1.
This £1bn will now be needed to provide the 42 extra freight paths on the slow lines. But this work is not now due for completion until 2007, two years after PUG2.
As the Table shows, signalling and control costs have quadrupled compared with the budget published by Railtrack at a conference in 1998 (Informed Sources January 1999). This includes an estimated £750m for conventional resignalling (see below).
Remodelling has also proved significantly more expensive than forecast as the capacity limitations on the route have been exposed by the PUG2 contract. It now looks like £1.6billion compared with £640million
Something else missing from the original £2.2billion were the management costs associated with such a large project. This is compounded by the fact that the lack of progress since 1996 means that Railtrack now has less and less time to do more and more work to meet its PUG2 commitments in particular.
Railtrack's original core management team of 300 has already been augmented to 1,500 and the total number of people working on the project is expected to rise to between 5,000 and 7,000.
Now all this talk of more money obscures a vital point. More billions mean more work on the track and infrastructure. If, instead of spending £2.2billion by May 2005, the cost is now £4.8billion, with another billion by 2007 (ish) that means Railtrack has at least twice a much work to do in a fast diminishing amount of time.
Which, of course, means more possessions, blockades and general disruption. In a press briefing Railtrack said that the work would need 6,600 possessions. A chum who knows a thing or two about major projects reckons this is a major under-estimate
Apparently, the non-railway project experts brought in on WCRM have assumed that you could have several activities going on simultaneously in a big possession so long as there is a gap in between each work site. For example, two miles of track renewal, a two mile gap and then another two miles of overhead line renewal.
Sadly this overlooks the need for works trains to run in and out of the sites. The ballast cleaning and track renewal trains are going to be supported by works trains bringing in thousands of tonnes of ballast a night plus rail and sleepers and removing spoil from a possession. Trying doing that with another possession a few miles down the track.
So many more possessions, plus all that signalling work and so on. What this means is that all the operators on the WCML are going to be running through a building site up to PUG2 in June 2005 and, now, beyond. This will clearly hit Train Operating Company revenues, Virgin's in particular
Can I see no kindly light to guide amid the encircling gloom? Afraid not. If Tony Fletcher and Robin Gisby had been in from the beginning, when the then Office of Passenger Rail Franchising and Railtrack signed up to the CIP and PUG, we would stand a chance.
They are doing a terrific job, but I fear for the reputation of the railway as it becomes apparent that the supertanker SS ‘West Coast' cannot be turned or stopped. The Government is said to be planning to hold the next general election next year. So it looks as though, like the Tories in 1997, hopes that rail policy will be a vote winner for Labour are unlikely to materialise.
Then we will see what Sir Alastair Morton is made of.
WCML additional capacity plans
Capacity Upgrade 1
Cost £1billion
Four track remainder of Trent Valley
Duplicated fast line platforms at Watford
Work to meet 42 additional freight paths commitment
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West Coast Route Modernisation
How the costs increased
Railtrack's budget 1998 1999*
Activity Cost £m Cost £m
Track & structures renewal 570 780
Remodelling(1) 640 1,600
Resignalling/control 485 1,900
Power supply and OHLE 285 580
Other 220 blank
Total 2,200 4,860*
1) Includes some four track in Trent Valley
Source : Railtrack
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WCML where the new money goes
Costs all £m
Year CIP PUG 1 PUG2 CUG1 Total
1998 1,350 150 600 nil 2,100(1)
1999 £1,750(2) 150 2,900(2) 1,000(3) 5,800
1) Does not include notional £127million for freight capacity work
2)Now includes management charges
3) Remodelling work for extra capacity. Does not include Hanslope flyover at £50m or four tracking Coventry-Birmingham corridor
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