THE Office of Rail Regulation has called for Network Rail to produce a “credible’’ plan for improving West Coast main line performance.
The plan has been demanded in the face of “unacceptable” infrastructure reliability and a hard-hitting complaint by Virgin Trains which said that after expenditure of £9 billion on the route customers had every right to expect performance to be at least as good as the rest of the country.

“We have demanded that Network Rail produces a credible plan for improving performance on the line, and any failure to do so may place it in breach of its licence and subject to a subsequent fine,” said ORR chief executive Bill Emery.
He was briefing journalists on ORR’s national rail review of the past five years and Network Rail’s performance over the past year, which he described as “mixed”.

“While NR has met many of its regulatory targets, it has missed others, and most notably has failed to make the efficiency savings expected of it over the five-year period to April,” he said.

“Although both NR and the industry have come a long way in providing a safer, more punctual and reliable railway, NR must work harder to achieve greater levels of satisfaction amongst its customers.

“Charged with delivering the biggest programme of expansion in decades, big challenges lie ahead over the next five years, and it needs to continue to raise its game to help further transform the railway. ”

Demands for a new West Coast performance plan comes just days after Network Rail revealed that the company is drafting two engineering specialists into a new maintenance organisation focusing on infrastructure problems at the southern end of the route. Other specialists may also be called in.

Mr Emery said that, while safety continues to improve and the risk of an accident is at its lowest level for many years, there is no room for complacency.

While there had not been a fatal train accident for several years, he said it was simply not acceptable that three rail workers were killed last year, the highest number since 2005. The industry needed to work together to achieve zero workforce fatalities, he added, and level crossing misuse remained a concern.

ORR’s assessment of NR’s performance formed the basis of advice given in a letter to Jim Cornell, chairman of NR’s remuneration committee regarding senior management bonuses. The letter made it clear that the company must back up any decision on bonuses with clear evidence of the benefits that have been brought to the railway as a whole.

ORR’s Network Rail monitor revealed the public performance measure at the record level of 90.6 per cent at the end of March, the highest since the measure was introduced.

Total number of infrastructure failures was 4.8 per cent lower than the previous year and delay minutes down 6.3 per cent. Expenditure during the year was £36 million – 5.7 per cent – below budget, but switch and crossing renewals fell 12 per cent short of plans.