Temperature's rising...

There can be no dispute that the UK weather has been unseasonably warm this week, but has it really been hot enough to justify the speed restrictions that we've seen on the line into Euston Thursday, Friday and today? 


The daily temperatures in London over the last three days have peaked around 28-29 degrees.  Hot for end September/early October, but hardly extreme for this country.  Despite this, train services on the West Coast Mainline (WCML) have been disrupted.


I can't pretend to be a rail expert, let alone a specialist in track maintenance and rail standards, but I can read.  There's a mass of documentation available on the Rail Group Standards website (rgsonline.co.uk).  One of those documents is titled "Track Standards Manual - Section 7: track System".  (This one's dated December 1998 and it's annotated as "Withdrawn".  I can't find the current equivalent but it seems safe to assume that in the health & safety world that we now live in the minimum standards it describes are not going to be drastically different in 2011).

The following references are interesting and relevant:

• Page 5 section 3.1: "The track system shall be designed, inspected and maintained to ensure the safe passage of vehicles taking account of normal temperature variations".
• Page 6 section 6.1: "The track system shall be capable of resisting rail temperatures in the range of -14°C to +53°C without distortion".
• Page 6 section 6.2: "CWR (continuously welded rail) track shall be installed and maintained at a notional stress free temperature (SFT) of 27°C and records shall be kept of the SFT."
• Page 13 section 9.2.9: "Additional Precautions during Exceptionally Hot Weather - When the forecast air temperature is 36°C or above arrangements shall be made to impose emergency speed restrictions in accordance with GO/RT3411"

There's more, but the content of this document all reads to me to indicate that Network rail should be laying and maintaining the track (which is normally artificially stressed) to a standard that would allow the normal operation of rail services at temperatures significantly higher than we have experienced this week.

So what the heck is going on?  I can think of only two possible conclusions:

1. Network Rail is failing to maintain the WCML to the required standard
2. Health & safety concerns are being exaggerated

I suspect it's the latter, but fear the former (we know from the frequent problems caused by general track, point and signal failures, particularly around Harrow-Watford Junction-Bushey and Bletchley) that there are issues.  


What do you think?  Is the performance over the last three days acceptable?  Am I being unfair to Network Rail?  Are the passengers being adequately served? 




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