Railway passengers passing through West London have suffered a 20-fold increase in delays because of damaged tracks, as problems mount on one of the UK’s busiest transport routes.
Great Western Railway, Elizabeth Line and Heathrow Express trains were held up for 8,262 minutes by temporary speed restrictions imposed because of poor track conditions between July and September, official figures show.
That compares to just 342 minutes of delays for the same problem during the comparable period of 2019, an increase of more than 2,000pc.
Speed restrictions are typically imposed because of “cyclic top” faults, or bumps in the line, which develop because of ballast problems, drain blockages, damaged foundations or other issues, according to Network Rail.
The delays are a growing headache for Sadiq Khan, London’s Mayor, who has warned they are causing knock-on disruption to a raft of other services across the capital.
Governments simply are not good at maintenance. There are always sexier things, more politically slaient things, to spend the money on. So, when politics determines the spending the money gets spent on those other things.
Just the way the world works.
What is really funny is that the whole ULEZ debacle was brought about by a huge deficit at
London Transport and in order to repay the bailout, the Dept of Transport told Khan to make the money up from the emissions scheme.
I have only used the Elizabeth Line once and I must admit that I don’t really see its point.
I must admit I also don’t see what the point of London is. It’s like a tumour on England’s arsehole. Can we swap for Doggerland?
Also, because of this, things don’t get done with maintenance in mind at the start.
A business that erects an office building is thinking about the TCO over decades. What’s it going to cost to replace windows, flooring, to keep the elevators running. Like I know that one shopping centre spent top money on flooring and carpets because it costs a lot to fit new flooring and carpets. It’s more cost-effective over a decade to pay more and have it last longer. Private sector buildings tend not to have prize-winning aesthetics because replacing curved glass is a lot more expensive than flat glass.
Not just government. Private entities also treat maintenance as optional – no value added means they don’t want to do it. I work in maintenance, our client regularly puts off buying high value spare parts because “they cost too much”.
Then they need the part urgently after it breaks and the machine is down for days.
Forward planning ability seems to be a rarity these days
The problem with the Elizabeth line is they didn’t have enough vision. You now have this super East-West tunnel under London and services stop at Shenfield and Reading. With more vision they could run services from Norwich to Truro ( improve the gene pool at both ends?). I know there wouldn’t be many passengers going end to end on that but there would certainly be quite a few part-way passengers, like on trains running from Plymouth to Aberdeen.
CD
I see this a lot in modern IT thinking. A small investment in infrastructure would obviate all these days long outages we see in firms. The latest one that I know of was the British Library. Judging by what the problem was, they could have had it running again within hours with a decent backup plan. Instead they were out for days.
What do we make of this?
Sadiq Khan has rejected a call to send cars that will be scrapped under his controversial Ulez scheme to Ukraine, according to reports.
The mayor of Kyiv had urged the vehicles be transported to his war-torn country, where he said they could be used for a “variety of life-saving and transport roles”.
But Mr Khan has said the proposal would not meet a “legal threshold” that requires that Londoners benefit, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The city’s mayor expanded his car scrappage scheme in the face of intense pressure over the new ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez), designed to make the city’s air cleaner.
The legal threshold would be easily met if they charged Ukraine a token peppercorn payment of £1 per car, but this isn’t about laws, it’s about Who/Whom.
Cars shipped to Ukraine for £1 would largely end up improving the vehicle pool in Burkina Faso.
I also think the Elizabeth line is pointless. It’s a more expensive, less reliable, less frequent, and not much faster alternative to the Piccadilly line to Heathrow.
So start a campaign to send scrappage cars to Gaza… then exploit the precedent.
BifR – if they end up being driven in Africa, that’s the best environmental outcome. Scrapping is the worst.
BiW – Yarp. There’s a very good reason why Islamic countries don’t allow non-Muslims to have power over Muslims.
We will end up doing similarly.
BiW
Not sure that there are any roads left in Gaza to drive on. That is why the refugees have to walk to Egypt.
I wonder what public transport is like in Gaza. Perhaps Khan could send them some bits of the Elizabeth Line or even ULEZ cameras
The purpose of the Elizabeth Line is to boost house prices in Maidenhead and Gidea Park.
Tractor Gent hits it on the head. When I was working I used the Virgin, subsequently, Crosscountry service that ran from Penzance to Edinburgh/Glasgow. The service was very heavily used but very few passengers went end to end, I was somewhat unusual commuting from Plymouth to Edinburgh
– What do we make of this?
Sadiq Khan has rejected a call to send cars that will be scrapped under his controversial Ulez scheme to Ukraine, according to reports.
Presumably a redemption arc for Sadiq Khan where he sails off into the sunset with Victor Orban.
@BiFR
I also think the Elizabeth line is pointless. It’s a more expensive, less reliable, less frequent, and not much faster alternative to the Piccadilly line to Heathrow
A foreshadow of HS2 Pt.1 – if it’s not scrapped too