Rail firm fined over late works

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Network Rail (NR) is to be fined £2.4m after engineering works in Portsmouth overran by more than six months.

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) said NR had breached its network licence by failing to properly plan and execute the track and signal upgrade.

Plans were not put in place to cope with the overrun leading to problems for many passengers, the ORR concluded.

Services around Portsmouth are still disrupted, but a spokesman for NR said it was "very disappointed" at the fine.

Group infrastructure director Peter Henderson said: "The company took prompt action to mitigate the disruption to passengers and the majority of services were restored some time ago.

"We will continue to work with train operators to manage delivery of these major renewal and remodelling projects in an affordable way to achieve improvements for passengers and freight users, the vast majority of which are delivered on time and on budget."

'Moderately serious'

The replacement of signals and remodelling of 50 miles of track around Portsmouth was due to finish in January.

Completion is now expected in October and at present there are five services an hour running to the city instead of the normal seven.

Bill Emery, chief executive of the ORR, said: "Network Rail's planning and risk assessment of the Portsmouth resignalling project fell well short of the standard we expect. We have concluded this is a moderately serious breach affecting many passengers.

"In particular, NR failed to consider and plan for the possibility of an extended overrun of the commissioning works, and the consequential effect on passengers.

"Similar future breaches elsewhere on the network would have an even greater impact on passengers and train operators."