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Friday 28 Jan 2005

DELAYS SLASHED AS PASSENGERS BENEFIT FROM BEST EVER NETWORK RAIL AUTUMN PERFORMANCE

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National

Network Rail today revealed that delays due to autumnal weather were reduced by a massive 42% this year.  The key safety indicators, such as instances of signals being passed at danger and trains overshooting platforms, also saw big improvements with an almost 70% reduction in incidents over the last two years.  These combined improvements - safety and performance - are the result of detailed preparations, extensive forward planning and thorough employee training that took place this year to mitigate the effects of Mother Nature. The biggest fleet of ‘leaf busting’ trains was in action over the autumn period (the ten weeks from beginning of October to early December), tackling ‘leaf mulch’, the railway’s equivalent of black ice on the roads. Some 80, two-man teams based around the country who used innovative and effective hand-held kit backed up these modern ‘leaf-fall’ weapons.  Together, these teams and their machinery got to grips with the annual problem to ensure trains and passengers arrived on time. Iain Coucher, Deputy Chief Executive said, “Through good, detailed planning and preparation Network Rail delivered an outstanding autumn which continues a trend that has seen some 16 months of continuous performance improvements.  Closer co-operation with the train operators has also played its part in producing the best autumnal performance for many years. My thanks go to all the people who worked very hard to make such a difference.” Performance in autumn 2004 was the best for at least the last five years with delays falling to 275,000 minutes.  This compares to 473,000 minutes for last year’s autumn and 519,000 in 2002. The key safety indicators have also seen big reductions with a 34% improvement this year compared to autumn 2003 which itself was 35% better than autumn 2002.