Supply chain support

PROFESSOR ANDREW MCNAUGHTON: Former HS2 Technical Director and Network Rail Chief Engineer

Things will all take longer than people hope, be they vaccinations, relaxations on restrictions, or any real movement on Williams. It’s like waiting for Godot. Roll on 2022.

So, what should we do, rather than marking time and staring at false dawns?

Top for me would be commitment to making a start on the eastern leg of HS2. This is the bit that would be truly transformational in connecting the manufacturing heartlands of England in a way that no amount of fiddling with our Victorian heritage ever can. It will be my test of whether Government really sees rail at the centre of a post-carbon Britain.

I hope we will invest more in developing the next generations of people at all levels, including how to work together and break from organisational silos.

In the meantime, right now we must deliver better value for money, especially on renewals and investment work. Quicker scheme delivery and at lower cost - making Project Speed happen. But above all, delivering consistently higher quality. It’s only at renewal that we can change the inbuilt performance of the railway, and what we do sets that for decades. Specifying, accepting and paying top whack for mediocre “good enough” work is simply not good enough. This is public money we are burning.

The best suppliers have invested in quality machinery and increasingly in technical training. Let’s provide an environment where they prosper, stop putting up with sub-standard, and banish the idiot notion that doing the job right is an optional expensive extra. It is the path to high reliability and low maintenance, and thus a 21st century product for our passengers and freight users.