Examination of witness (Questions 100
- 119)
WEDNESDAY 15 DECEMBER 1999
MR DENIS
TUNNICLIFFE
100. You will let me have that in writing. What
about an innovative "moving block" signalling system
in such a time sensitive project, was that too ambitious? Were
you wrong again?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) I think so.
101. You are having a bad day. How much is it
going to cost to upgrade the signalling infrastructure?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) That is an answer we have not yet
determined. We are talking to the supplier about the most sensible
way forward.
102. You are talking to the supplier about the
most sensible way forward. So you took on somebody to whom you
gave a job. You told them what you wanted. They did not do it.
You do not know how much it is going to cost and you do not know
whether it is going to work?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) I know that each step we take forward
now will work because we will only take steps forward at the rate
at which we can be confident they will work.
103. But you do not know when that is going
to be?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) As yet we have not determined our
strategy. The system we have at the moment will comfortably take
us through the first couple of years. At the moment we are concentrating
with that supplier in getting that system installed. We will then
have to determine the most sensible way of creating more capacity
in that system.
104. Two years is not very long, is it, for
capacity in capacity terms, not at the rate you have been talking
about? You are growing all the time. You are packing more and
more people on, like ill mannered sardines. They are wanting to
take it. The Government is behind you in wanting to move people
off their cars on to your underground system and you cannot even
tell us whether in two years' time you will be capable of having
a signalling system which will take the capacity that the Jubilee
Line is creating in order to carry them?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) We have now a capability of 24 trains
an hour.
105. Yes.
(Mr Tunnicliffe) That we believe will be sufficient
for several years' growth.
106. For several years, so we are talking three,
four?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) That sort of period.
107. How long normally does it take you to increase
your capacity, given the not altogether glorious history up to
now?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) The performance of the world railway
signalling industry has been reasonably inglorious over recent
years.
108. I see, so it is not just you that has got
the problem, it is all the other so and sos as well?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) Pretty well, yes. Our cousins in
Railtrack, as you know—
Chairman: We do not want to use Railtrack as
an example, if you do not mind.
Mr Donohoe: You do not want to be related to
them.
Chairman
109. No, we do not want to use them as an example.
(Mr Tunnicliffe) They have come to the same conclusion
on moving block or they have come to a conclusion on moving block
to abandon it and we have not come to that conclusion.
110. So they are ahead of you.
(Mr Tunnicliffe) We do recognise it is a technology
which although much promised is not yet there.
111. What are you doing to find out what the
causes are and to put them right?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) The causes of what?
112. The fact you thought you had a system which
worked and have discovered you have not.
(Mr Tunnicliffe) At the moment all the people with
skills in this area are concentrating on getting the present railway
installed and reliable. We will be working to see if this contractor,
with the investment they have already made, can be the sensible
way forward or whether we have to look to other technologies which
are being developed.
Mr Donohoe
113. Is it true to say in terms of the contract
at this very moment you have electricians holding you to ransom
costing you in the order of £3,000 a week?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) The electricians, whose motives I
would not like to take a view on, have deals with their contractors,
Drake & Skull, and those deals are directed at getting the
job finished as quickly as possible.
114. That is in the order of £3,000 a week.
(Mr Tunnicliffe) I do not know frankly because it
is a decision Drake & Skull made by themselves in order to
complete the contract more quickly. They know, no doubt, we are
not looking to the task of remobilising the workforce after the
Christmas break.
Chairman
115. We would like to know whether relatively
minor extension projects, such as the ones planned for the East
London line or the Croxley link scheme are going to be included
in the PPP agreement for the sub surface lines?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) We expect to include them.
116. How are they going to be funded?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) We would expect the contractor to
assemble appropriate funding capability. So in other words we
would not see it being funded in capital terms from the public
purse but the cost will eventually be reflected in the access
charge or the infrastructure service charge.
117. I see. How do you expect to plan the future
for major expansion?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) We would expect essentially the Mayor
to be the catalyst for that. The work tends to suggest that beyond
tuning the present system, and a lot of that is about making it
more reliable, beyond tuning the present system major expansion
has to come from a new line of some form.
118. What about the City of London's Report
on CrossRail?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) London Transport and London Underground
have consistently favoured CrossRail as a long term solution to
some of the more severe over crowding on London Underground, particularly
the Central Line.
119. Long term, so it is not one of your priorities
for example?
(Mr Tunnicliffe) The priorities at the moment, because
it is where we have the maximum leverage, are with the present
system and moving into the new structure. I would expect the Mayor
when he looks at the policy information and the planning work
and so on and so forth, it is very probable that he may well be
stimulated into the view that is one of his high priorities.
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