NETWORK RAIL RESPONDS TO ORR LICENCE BREACH

Wednesday 6 Jun 2007

NETWORK RAIL RESPONDS TO ORR LICENCE BREACH

Region & Route:: National

Simon Kirby, Director Infrastructure Investment said: "Network Rail recognises that the over-run of the massive £100 million Portsmouth resignalling scheme has let passengers down. The company took prompt action to mitigate the disruption to passengers and the majority of services were restored some time ago. We are now consulting with the affected train operating companies about identifying a suitable time to complete the project later in the year that will have the least impact on services. We are disappointed that the ORR has decided to take this unnecessary action, despite all the work we have done to fix the problem, and despite the scale of the investment programme which we are now delivering. We will continue to work with train operators to manage delivery of these major renewal and remodelling projects in an affordable way to achieve improvements for passengers and freight users."

Notes to editors

ORR has ruled that Network Rail was in breach but is not in continuing breach of its licence Once Network Rail’s contractors, Siemens, advised the company of a risk of an over-run, a specialist team was immediately pulled together to put in place contingencies and mitigation measures to ensure the impact on passengers was minimised. The new signalling system will, once complete, increase the capacity and reliability of trains services throughout the area

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