Examination of Witnesses (Questions 15620
- 15639)
15620. Mr Liddell-Grainger: If there
is a case for you to come back, we will look at it and have a
think about it, but it will be for us to decide.
15621. Mr Straker: Yes, of course, sir.
15622. Ms Lieven: I think, sir, before
I cross-examine, it may be just important to clarify this a tiny
bit. What we are intending to do is write to the Committee explaining
where we have got to on timetabling and something about the conclusions
that are reached and how they are going to be handled from here
on. We do have a desire to bring this Committee to a halt one
day and not to keep coming back on issues because there is quite
a long shopping list by now of people who are coming back generally
wholly appropriately, but we would not want to raise the expectation
that everybody who is concerned about freight and timetabling,
which is in truth all the Petitioners in this two-week slot, are
going to get some other slot by which we will call evidence on
timetabling and they will come back and make their case again.
We are going to write to the Committee in the terms discussed
yesterday. I hope that is acceptable, sir.
15623. Mr Liddell-Grainger: I totally
accept that.
15624. Ms Lieven: I think Mr Straker
may have expectations which we were not intending to meet, unless
the Committee directly instructed us to.
15625. Mr Liddell-Grainger: We will wait
until you come back to us, Ms Lieven. As you are well aware, by
the end of the year it will not be our problem, but the House
of Lords', so Mr Straker may get a second bite of the cherry.
15626. Ms Lieven: He will undoubtedly
get a second bite of the cherry in the House of Lords and about
that there is no issue.
15627. Mr Straker: Sir, I am more than
happy obviously to be entirely in your hands about this matter.
The point I do make, if I may, and emphasise is the single importance
of Hutchison Ports in connection with this given the volume of
material actually carried and, sir, in that regard we stand differently
maybe from others as to our need to be involved, at the very least,
in the working of the Timetable Working Group because one of the
deficiencies, it may well be thought, is the inadequacy of those
who have presently been involved in terms of the list of those
involved.
15628. Mr Liddell-Grainger: I think your
learned colleague Mr George made that very clear.
15629. Mr Straker: I am sure he did,
sir. He makes matters very clear.
15630. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Ms Lieven?
Cross-examined by Ms Lieven
15631. Ms Lieven: There is just one thing
I want to ask you, Mr Garratt, because as I have, I think, said
on a number of occasions, you are coming back on Tuesday to have
the pleasure of locking horns with Mr Elvin on some of these matters
and I will not, therefore, engage. There is just one thing which
is very specific about the Haven ports on your exhibits which
I wanted to ask about. Could we put up exhibit page 11 of your
exhibits.[53]
I do not have the slide numbers, I am afraid. You refer at the
second bullet point to the point that the pathing exercise identifies
14 further paths available from Haven to the West Coast Main Line.
Do you see that?
(Mr Garratt) I do.
15632. And that is coming down the Great Eastern
and then getting on to the North London and then skipping round
to the West Coast Main Line.
(Mr Garratt) Yes.
15633. How many of those paths are on the electric
lines during the day? Just so the Committee understand the question—
(Mr Garratt) I understand
the question, but—
15634. Well, you may, but the Committee may
possibly understand less. The point I am trying to get at is to
establish how many of those paths are affected by Crossrail because
a large proportion of freight paths are generally at night and
the vast majority of freight paths on this route coming in from
Shenfield are, as I have already said, on the main lines and not
the lines being used by Crossrail, so I just wanted to know whether
you knew the answer to that, Mr Garratt.
(Mr Garratt) I can provide
the answer, I have it in front of me, so perhaps people would
care to wait for a couple of minutes while I check that.
15635. I am quite happy for you to come back
to us informally and then Mr Elvin can come back to this on Tuesday
if he wants to.
(Mr Garratt) Yes, okay,
but can I just make another point which is that I am not sure
I agree with the statement you made that there is no interaction
between the services from the Haven ports and the electric lines.
You made that point in opening this morning and I am not sure
I agree.
15636. I do not think I said there was no interaction,
and Mr Berryman will give evidence on that in a minute. Could
we put up Mr Watson's exhibit page 31 which we saw before. As
far as the trains from the Haven ports are concerned, coming in
from the east, they are coming in on a two-track line as far as
somewhere just a bit east of Shenfield, yes?
(Mr Garratt) They are.
15637. There are very significant constraints,
are there not, on how much more freight you can get coming down
the line before you ever get to Shenfield?
(Mr Garratt) Yes, there
is an issue here. They are sharing tracks with the passenger trains,
without question, and there certainly is a limit. That limit is
dictated by the speed and the stopping patterns of those passenger
trains. We saw only in the last few days how that sort of relationship
can be changed. On July 7, so only a few days ago, Network Rail
produced a conclusion, if you like, on their East Coast Main Line
reanalysis of the timetable at the ORR's instruction and found
an extra 10 paths a day per direction specifically because precise
timings had been adjusted with the co-operation of other train
operators once it was taken that maximising capacity was the prime
objective, so these are not absolutes and there is definitely
an opportunity here to make some changes. I personally think that
until that sort of exercise has been done on the Great Eastern,
we cannot really have a proper baseline from which to start arriving
at different conclusions. We are all the time making and amending,
if you like, but yes, I would be happy to agree with your point.
15638. Ms Lieven: Thank you very much.
That is all, sir.
15639. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Mr Straker,
that evidence is A174.
53 Committee Ref: A173, Base Line Rail Volumes-Forest
Gate (LINEWD-11705A-011). Back
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