NR plans charter changes after Scotsman debacle

NETWORK Rail is to change the way it manages charter trains, following the late cancellation and then reinstatement of ‘A3’ 4-6-2 60103 Flying Scotsman’s tour of the Borders Railway on May 15 ( RAIL 801).

In the future, the process for submitting and reviewing steam and other heritage charter requests will be reviewed, agreed and formalised between the key parties - particularly NR, West Coast Railway Company (WCR) and DB Cargo. The level of resourcing within the gauging engineers team is also to be reviewed, to ensure there is ‘adequate cover’ for peaks in workload and leave.

An ongoing programme to “recover the compliance” of the National Gauging Database should be supported, says NR, and ways to accelerate it “should be explored”. A lack of complete gauging data for the Borders Railway held centrally was the main reason for NR’s late refusal to allow the steam locomotive to run.

A review of the process for completion, submission and inputting as-built gauging data from projects and maintenance activities is also recommended, as is creation of a process to identify, track and prioritise high-profile charter requests. Creation of timetable capacity over pre-gauge-assessed routes that can be claimed by charter operators is also under consideration.

An internal review blamed delays in processing the request by WCR to run the train between the internal teams involved, “due to there being shortages of both data and resources, and no clear indication of the importance and urgency of the work required”.

The investigation also found there was no formal mechanism within Network Rail to “flag, track and prioritise” high-profile charter requests, and that the problem was only escalated at the point where the decision was made to prohibit the use of 60103. The review added that “none of the factors contributing to the overall process failure in this case appears to be unique, and individually each factor would seem to occur regularly as an issue in the approval of charter requests. What is different in this case is that all of these factors have occurred together.

Speaking exclusively to RAIL, WCR Commercial Manager James Shuttleworth said: “We welcome the acknowledgement that charters need further resources, because if managed well, charters can warm the whole market for rail. It would be good to see a documented process for charters that all parties can understand and rely on.”