Loading ...Network Rail (NR) company has been ordered to pay a record fine in the amount of £14m for overrunning engineering work. The company has been denied their plea to have the fine set aside. NR had asked the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) to allow it spend £14m on track improvements instead.
The ORR’s response was that Network Rail (NR) was guilty of a “serious and continuing breach of its license and deserved a financial penalty”. Passenger group watchdog - Passenger Focus supported NR’s suggestion of improvements over fines because they realize the fine will be passed to taxpayers. Although NR is officially a private company, it has no shareholders, so is effectively a public organization.
But ORR’s chief executive, Bill Emery, said the fine must stand. “We remain convinced that the systemic weaknesses we have found in Network Rail’s approach to the planning and execution of its engineering work are a serious and continuing breach of its license, meriting a financial penalty.”
Thousands of rail passengers were subjected to major problems after engineering work overran at New Year on the West Coast Main Line at Rugby in the West Midlands. The New Year incident was largely caused by staff shortages when about half of a specialist engineering team working on overhead lines failed to turn up for work.
In response to the ruling concerning the fine, Iain Coucher, NR chief executive, said: “We had suggested that this sum be invested into the rail network to fund improvements which would benefit passengers, a suggestion supported by many in the industry. We are disappointed that this won’t happen. However, we accept today’s judgement and will be paying the fine shortly.”
Mr. Coucher insisted that since the problems at New Year, his company had made significant changes to the way we plan and carry out big improvement work.
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