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Mixed signals – but Byers may bite the bullet
Watching television the other night I fund myself getting really angry, It was the first in the series of programmes about a hospital trust and focused on the Intensive Care Unit.
What got me going was the statement that the Government had made £150million available to fund an additional 250 intensive care beds. I know that in the railway industry anything under a billion counts as experimental error (see analysis above), but the contrast between the number of lives that £150million would save or improve and the £2.8-£5.6billion cost of meeting the recommendations in the Uff/Cullen report on traction protection by 2010 was, and I use the word advisedly, obscene.
Of course, Uff and Cullen argued that since the European Train Control System had to be installed under the European Interoperability Directive, and the state would pay, With c onsiderations of cost/benefit were thus rendered irrelevant so where was the problem in ripping out existing signalling, already being fitted with TPWS, prematurely? The fact that the money could be much better spent elsewhere was beyond them.
Next in an eventful month, John Hugh Rees, a senior official in European Commission's Energy & Transport Directorate-General came before Gwynneth Dunwoody's eximious Commons Transport Sub-committee. Naturally Uff/Cullen's use of the Interoperability Directive came up.
Mr Rees was quite clear that the Directive was nothing to do with safety as such. ‘We are talking about the directive on interoperability', he said.
He equated signalling to tunnels and bridges where it would be uneconomic rebuild them to just to meet the gauge requirements for interoperability. But it would be sensible when signalling systems became life-expired, to replace them with the Euro-Standard ETCS which offered the prospect of much lower cost together with the opportunity for more efficient operation across national frontiers.'
Mr Rees was clear that ETCS is essentially aimed at very high speed routes running at 155mile/h and above. In UK terms, he added, ‘There is no requirement in the directive to convert the line to Southend or to Ipswich to ETCS. It might be sensible in the future, when the signalling system is worn out, to use a variant of the ETCS simply to reduce costs, but there is no requirement in the directive.'
As for using ETCS to improve train protection, Rees repeated that there was no EU requirement, so any move would have to be a national decision. ‘ETCS is only required to be installed on new or rebuilt lines', Rees re-emphasised. ‘There are only two in the UK : the high speed link to the Channel Tunnel and the West Coast Main Line'. He confirmed that there was no requirement in Community law for wider fitment.
Meanwhile, back in December, in a move which failed to appear on the DTLRs web site, Transport Secretary Stephen Byers had signed a Declaration of intent (see panel) produced by the Paddington Survivors Group. It was also signed by the Association of Train Operating Companies.
Now what on earth was Byers playing at, signing up to a document produced by a small special interest pressure group. Of course, his Officials had defused it to the best of their ability: note the escape hatch labelled (or as from time to time amended on the advice of the Health and Safety Commission).
Even so if was a politically naïve thing to do. One Informed Source suggested that it was aimed at generating some positive PR when Byers was under pressure. But from my perspective it looked like Danegeld.
And then, early in February, identical stories appeared in The Guardian and The Independent. They said that the Government had abandoned/had no intention of meeting, the 2010 deadline for installing the ‘ £3bn safety system
My first thought that this was the DTLR testing the water for a formal announcement on the implementation of Uff/Cullen, but analysis of the wording suggested that it might have come from somewhere in the safety lobby, trying a pre-emptive strike on such a move by Government. For example, the Independent report said ‘ The (railway) industry fears that the electronic equipment for preventing trains passing red lights, recommended in the Cullen report, will not be in use until 2015 on high-speed routes'. Well no one I know of in the main stream industry thinks like that.
According to the Guardian ‘A decision by Mr Byers to delay ATP will add to the mood of crisis on the railways, beset by industrial disputes and growing cash demands, and the mounting public perception that Labour is failing to deliver on its promises in areas such as transport and health. Ministers fear that the underfunding of railways will become a key issue at the next election'. Well once again, hands up those readers who think that abandoning Uff/Cullen would make things worse?
Clearly the two Transport Correspondents had spoken to DTLR. We were told that ‘Ministers accept there is little chance of installing the fail-safe automatic train protection (ATP) system on time and are waiting for an opportune moment to announce the delay. Whitehall sources point out that the main obstacle is the cost'. And ‘ The government has become convinced that the cost of the ATP scheme at present does not justify the expense. Mr Byers is likely to set a much later date for its introduction, widely expected to be 2015' .
The Guardian even managed to link ETCS with the 10 year transport plan, claiming that abandonment of Uff/Cullen would ‘rule out any chance of the government achieving a 50% increase in passenger traffic by the end of the decade'. This increase, we were told, was based on the premise that Automatic Train Protection would have ‘speeded up the railway system by allowing trains to travel more safely and closer together on modernised parts of the network'.
Err well, you don't want me to go into the differences between ETCS Level 1 and Level 3 and whether moving block really would give more capacity, do you? I thought not.
But it is going to be interesting to see how long it will be before The Government faces up to reality on Uff/Cullen and, when it does, how it chooses to bury the news.
Declaration of Intent
We the undersigned: • acknowledge the establishment by the Health and Safety Commission, with the consent of the Deputy Prime Minister, The Rt Hon John Prescott MP, of the Joint Inquiry into Train Protection Systems and the Ladbroke Grove Rail Inquiry, arising out of the rail disasters at Southall on 19 September 1997 and Ladbroke Grove on October 5 1999 ; • also acknowledge the endeavours of Lord Cullen [and Professor Uff] in conducting the Joint Inquiry into Train Protection Systems and the Ladbroke Grove Rail Inquiry and publishing the report into The Joint Inquiry Into Train Protection Systems (March 2001) and The Ladbroke Grove Rail Inquiry Part 1 (June 2001) and Part 2 (September 2001) Reports [the Reports]; • accept the advisability of the recommendations in respect of the Train Protection Warning System, Advanced Train Protection Systems, SPAD prevention measures, the recommendations for the improvements of safety and the management of safety and the regulatory regime, and other measures set out in the Reports; • understand that we are among those cited by Lord Cullen to implement the recommendation as set out in the Reports, or being such that we may assist or cooperate with those responsible for their implementation, or otherwise encourage their implementation; • publicly declare that we will strive to fully implement, assist with the implementation of, and encourage the implementation of, all recommendations set out in the Reports, within the timescale set down in the Reports (or as from time to time amended on the advice of the Health and Safety Commission), and as set out in summary below:
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