Network Rail says it is optimistic the West Coast main line work around Rugby, which caused rail chaos yesterday will be finished in time for normal services to resume at 05:00 on Friday.
Normal services restarted at Liverpool Street station this morning (3 January) although there were some delays because of stock movement.
”We are working to have the West Coast line ready for 05:00 tomorrow and are still on track as far as I”m aware,” a Network Rail spokesman told ABTN.
”We are due to make an announcement this afternoon to confirm this, but we are optimistic ” we need to run some tests on the line and that”s what we”re going through now.”
When asked about the Office of Rail Regulation”s (ORR) announcement of an urgent investigation into the over-runs ” the work was originally due to be completed on 30 December ” and possible fines - the spokesman said: ”No one wants to get to the bottom of what went wrong as much as we do. We want to improve our planning process and learn the lessons from this to ensure it doesn”t happen again.
”And of course we reiterate the apology to passengers affected by this.”
An ORR official said that its priority was to pressurise Network Rail to get everything back on schedule.
”We haven”t made any decision on possible fines yet but we do have to make sure these things don”t happen again. We fined Network Rail ”2.4m ($4.7m) for the overrun of signaling work in the Portsmouth area at Christmas 2006, and it could be that another one might be appropriate but it”s difficult to say. It may need more other drastic action which we”ll need to consider.”
Association of Train Operating Companies director general George Muir, said: "The ORR has not been delivering the message to Network Rail that things must improve. There needs to be some way of getting the message to the organisation as a whole, and the only way to do that is through a fine."
Virgin Trains was actually advising its customers not to travel on its services today because of the continuing engineering work.
”Telling people not to travel on a working day is an extraordinary message,” said chief executive of watchdog Passenger Focus, Anthony Smith. ”Yet again passengers are paying the same fares for a longer journey involving buses ” where is the compensation for passengers?”
A Virgin spokesman told ABTN: ”It is an extraordinary message, but Passenger Focus has to understand the realities of running a railway. There is absolutely no point in encouraging 50,000 or 60,000 passengers to arrive at Birmingham International when it is impossible to carry that number of people on replacement coach services. It”s impossible and it would have been irresponsible. The alternative was to advise them to travel by other means, but we knew some would still turn up.
”No one is suggesting that”s satisfactory, but Network Rail has assumed complete responsibility for the delays, and now we must ensure this kind of event never happens again.”
Virgin has complained to ORR that Network Rail has breached the terms of its operating licence, but it said a huge fine was not necessarily the answer.
”We”re not actually that bothered about the fine ” that”s up to the regulator - but what we want Network Rail to do is totally overhaul its planning procedures, and carry them out in a far more orderly process so everyone knows what journeys will be possible and what timings will be available,” said the spokesman.
Network Rail”s director of operations and customer services, Robin Gisby, said in a television interview this morning: "I am deeply unhappy that we have mucked them [passengers] around. We will get this thing fixed and then we will understand in detail what went wrong.”
In a separate statement he said that the company is working around the clock to restore services as soon as possible.