The Office of Rail & Road (ORR) has told Network Rail that if it does not undertake inspections at the required intervals, faults could go undetected (or detected but not assessed), leading to safety issues.
Failure to manage the examination process could mean speed restrictions, delays and an impact on maintenance and renewal activities.
ORR first raised its concerns about s Network Rail’s structures examinations in 2021 and has been monitoring progress to clear the backlog since then.
Despite some pockets of good practice, overall there has been limited progress and some regions have seen the backlog increase, ORR chief executive John Larkinson said.
He also expressed concerns that Network Rail may not be able to comply to its new standard for structure examinations, which is intended by September 2023.
ORR chief executive John Larkinson said: “There are over 70,000 structures on the rail network, so we understand the scale of the job of inspecting these assets. Equally, we know this requires clear, robust and systematic examination plans but previous attempts to get on top of the backlog of work have failed. Network Rail has accepted the need to do better and it must now deliver against the agreed workplan to clear the backlog."
Network Rail has agreed to provide it by 30th June 2023 with plans to achieve compliance. ORR will assess these, with final plans produced by Network Rail at the end of August 2023.
ORR will then monitor execution of these plans and investigate progress at the end of the current Control Period 6 (ending April 2024).
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