Examination of Witnesses (Questions 153-159)
MR JOHN
ARMITT, MR
ROBIN GISBY,
TIM CLARKE
AND MR
MICHAEL ROLLINGS
WEDNESDAY 19 JUNE 2002
Chairman
153. Gentlemen, I apologise for keeping you
waiting. You are, as always, welcome. May I ask you firstly to
identify yourselves?
(Mr Rollings) I am Mike Rollings and
I am one of the Joint Special Railway Administrators.
(Mr Armitt) John Armitt, Chief Executive of Railtrack.
(Mr Gisby) I am Robin Gisby, I am Director of the
Eastern Region of Railtrack.
(Mr Clarke) I am Tim Clarke, Director of the North
West Region of Railtrack.
154. Did anyone want to make any introductory
remarks or may we go straight to questions?
(Mr Armitt) Go straight to questions.
155. Mr Rollings, do you have a particular statement
you would like to make?
(Mr Rollings) No, I can go straight to questions.
156. Is the performance of the northern rail
network back to pre-Hatfield levels?
(Mr Armitt) No, the performance of the network as
a whole, in terms of the delays which occur on the network, is
not back to pre-Hatfield levels and the North would represent
that as across the whole network.
157. Do you think there are greater problems
in the North caused by Railtrack than there are in the rest of
the country?
(Mr Armitt) No, I do not.
158. You are quite convinced of that.
(Mr Armitt) Yes.
Chris Grayling
159. We have been hearing from the PTEs about
capacity problems. How much of the difficulties which are currently
being experienced with performance are capacity related? How many
of the current problems can be attributed to a network which is
working at capacity or beyond it?
(Mr Armitt) The network is in certain parts of the
country operating at capacity and at times excessive capacity.
That means that when there is any problem on the network, it is
very difficult to recover quickly from that problem. Everybody
knows those problems are accentuated not actually in the North
but primarily in and around London. In the North it would be localised,
but it would be unfair to say that the North had the same capacity
constraints as the South.
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