London’s King’s Cross and Paddington which had already been the source of chaos on 27th December 2014, when the track maintenance work overrun, as a result of deploying wrong equipment, and multiple failure of track laying equipment. It is disgraceful that the Operator East Coast was given only 12hours notice on boxing day that both King’s Cross would be closed next day and passengers should make their way to Finsbury Park for mainline services. At King’s Cross men with red flags were on duty to keep trains running after a signal failure on Sunday 28th February 2014. Similar overruns in 2008 costs Network Rail £14m in fines. Reliability is the key to running a successful railway. If the equipment, including the tracks and the rolling stock, is not reliable, the railway is not workable. A good railway management will keep track of its performance and its failures and ensure that problems are eliminated before they become endemic. Perhaps Network Rail should take a leaf out of Mumbai Suburban Railway which serves the Mumbai Metropolitan region, of over 289 miles and transports more than 7,5million commuters daily, does efficient and preventive maintenance of their tracks and rolling stock without any major interruptions.
Rail Passengers, the poor victims will not get automatic compensation for delays, instead it is up to the individual passenger to make a claim for cash back, although, East Coast will get a lump sum compensation from Amey Sersa the Principal contractor it employed to work in Holloway tunnels near King’s Cross in North London. Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said : “I urge those affected by these delays at King’s Cross and Paddington to make a claim urgently”.
Network Rail, the infrastructure firm which gets £5bn a year from the taxpayers, was already branded rip off merchants when they announced new year fare rises. Network rail have a complete project delivery team right across United Kingdom over 310 sites and 11,500 people.
Days before Christmas the rail watchdog warned Network Rail about train operators not informing passengers about delays in good time.