The already nationalised English train operating companies have employed some good leaders and learned how to present things to their new board (HM Treasury). Day to day supervision falls to the equivalent of regional directors in the private sector and Transport for London, Transport for the North and the Department for Transport (DfT) – where there’s no mayor in the public sector.
Politicians have a key role to play, stopping DfT becoming too hands on and Treasury being too negative.
Labour’s prospectus does not frighten me or the rail workers yet. I just hope we avoid the best leaders and their management teams taking early retirement or becoming consultants.
John Stuart Porter (M), address withheld. Posted online in response to: “Labour rail strategy: renationalise services, employ system thinking and empower experts” (NCE online, 25 April).
I hope Labour’s new Railways Act will legislate to prevent political interference in projects. This would mean that in future, destructive acts such as the cancellation of the northern leg of High Speed 2 (HS2) – by a single ill-advised politician – are not possible. The same could be said of the reported scorched earth strategy where land secured via compulsory purchase order was put back on the market. Stop-start-stop infrastructure planning and implementation should be impossible by law, bringing certainty to project planning.
Comments by CK Mak [steering group chair of the ICE’s Next Steps Programme to analyse the lessons from the cancellation of HS2’s northern leg] on what went wrong with HS2, are in my view entirely right, especially on the need for effective communication of why the chosen project option is the preferred solution. Cancellation of half a project, on which presumably a significant component of the social and economic benefit depends, would not then seem logical.
Empowering experts over politicians seems to be an essential step for infrastructure.
John Canton (F), address withheld
Posted online in response to: “Labour rail strategy: renationalise services, employ system thinking and empower experts”
Fenlands reservoir scheme’s opportunity cost
Inside Track has an excellent feature on Anglian Water’s plans for the Fenlands Reservoir (NCEMay). At 50M.m3 of useable volume, this will be by far the largest reservoir built in the UK since the 35M.m3 capacity Carsington dam was finally completed in 1992.
It will, however, take four years for a development consent order to be granted and yet another 10 years for the reservoir and associated pipelines and treatment works to be constructed. This despite the fact that the project is being taken through the Ofwat Regulator’s Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development system.
Further, the stored water will be used only by Anglian Water and Cambridge Water, when this was a wonderful opportunity for a multi-sector reservoir to serve the increasing need for irrigation in East Anglia.
So, while I welcome plans for a substantial new reservoir, I wonder why we have to take so long to have it commissioned and why we could not have thought about the needs of other water users in that region.
Michael Norton (F), michael.norton@nortonwater.com
Bring back hard shoulders
Smart motorways were just a cheap way of increasing capacity of two by three lanemotorways by stealing the hard shoulder refuge to become a fourth running lane – (“Safety of smart motorways again questioned as data shows regular technology outages” NCE online, 22 April).
In the event of a breakdown or blow-out there is no longer a lane of saferefuge to revert to.
Smart motorways: Using the hard shoulder as a running lane is dangerous
Such additional “smart” detection features of radar, cameras and the use of signing are only of assistanceif they are powered, functional and manned 24/7.
The provisionof only intermittent refuges and an almost continuous guard rail on the near side leads to immediate lane blockage and in the event of an incident there is no safe space for the driver or passengers to alight from or to clear the vehicle.
The BBC Panorama programme aired in April ["Smart Motorways: When Technology Fails”] clearly indicates the defective performanceof these “smart” systems.
Accordingly, the use of the hard shoulder should be reinstatedand mandated strictly as an emergency lane and not a running lane on all motorways with immediate effect before any more lives are put at risk.
Nigel C Lewis (M), nigelclewis@gmail.com
A63 scheme: money well spent?
In Helena Russell’s “Problem solving” article on improvements to the A63 (NCE, April), Balfour Beatty’s technical director isquoted as saying: “You might think it would be better not to dig a hole at all …., but … there was no appetite to impose a flyover on the city skyline.”
It is good that we recognise our industry’s engineering prowess, and the design solutions described are laudable. However, some designs attract such an eye-watering cost that they beg the question,could the sum be better spent?In this case, the cost was £355M to improve a 1.5km length of highway where the 400m underpass must have attracted the predominant cost. The cost may have been more palatable had the article also described the overriding business case.
Surely the challenge for National Highways and any project team should be to produce a value-for-money solution.
Michael Pickford (M), address withheld
Design scrutiny for Baltimore bridge
It is clear the Baltimore bridge was not designed for ship impact in a major seaway. That is a significant failure and was seemingly not considered during its ongoing service over the decades.
There should never have been pairs of steel or concrete supports or columns on the foundations. Ship impact on such structures will very likely cause collapse.
Also, they are likely to be hit before the ship impacts the foundations or pile caps due to the significant ship prow overhang above the water line.
For the redesign the client, the shipping industry, the harbour authorities and the engineering profession need to collectively define the ship impact loading case and then regularly review the design parameters.
It also needs to define the unacceptable outcomes of ship impact. At the very least, the bridge should not collapse if any one column is hit and no longer functional; also, the bridge should not collapse if any bottom chord deck member is hit and no longer functional.In defining the clearance required for ships, no bottom chord member in the main spans should be lower than the height of the ship superstructure or container pile.
There could potentially be two sets of ship design, size, geometry and required clearances, with approach spans designed for smaller ships, since the shoaling seabed might limit the size there.
It is likely that if some of these design parameters had been in force at the time of design, the whole bridge would have to have been lifted 10m and the truss design would no longer have been economic – and would not have been chosen in the first place – due to the longer approach ramps and spans.
Instead, concrete piers, probably solid, would likely have been required. Also, an economic solution minimising the length of the approach spans – perhaps a box deck solution – would have been arrived at, possibly half the depth of the truss solution. The choice of whether to use steel or concreteboxes or beams/girders could be determined by economic comparisons. In any case, the three main river spans should certainly be continuous.
A bridge like this over a waterway carrying major shipping traffic would normally have some local pier lead-in protection/fendering fore and aft to help protect the foundations and columns, and therefore the whole bridge. The extent of protection should be one of the design parameters derived during design criteria determination.
I look forward to seeing the form of the replacement bridge with interest.
John Franklin (F), address withheld
Like what you've read?To receive New Civil Engineer's daily and weekly newsletters click here.
