Engineering overruns
2. Network Rail's engineering overruns at New Year
2008 at Rugby, London Liverpool Street and Glasgow Shields Junction
caused tremendous inconvenience to passengers across the country,
and inevitably came to shape and colour our oral evidence sessions.
We held additional sessions in January and March in order to take
evidence from Network Rail, Bechtel (the main contractor) and
twice from the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) specifically on
these events and their consequences. Our investigation, along
with analyses from the ORR, have led us to believe that the engineering
overruns are symptomatic of crucial systemic flaws which have
to be resolved if we are to have any hope of getting a sustainable
railway, as promised in the White Paper. This Report considers
both subjects.
3. We are grateful to all those organisations and
individuals who submitted written evidence to our inquiry, and
in particular to the 45 individuals who gave oral evidence, enabling
us to explore the issues in depth. We are particularly grateful
to our Specialist Adviser on this inquiry, Professor John Preston
of the University of Southampton.
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