Railtrack guns for maintenance firms

by John Leitch



Poor performance by the six existing track maintenance contractors has prompted Railtrack to bring in new players when the new round of contracts are let in January.

The decision stems from a meeting that David Meek, Railtrack's director of contracting and supply, had with the six contractors six months ago when he told them their procedures and processes were poor. He explained: "They have been slow to improve to the standard we expect in contracting firms. They should have been right 12 months ago. We want them to come up with innovation and share in the savings."

The six existing maintenance contractors are Amec, Amey, Balfour Beatty, First Engineering, GTRM (a Tarmac/Alstom joint venture) and Jarvis. Meek confirmed: "I have been very impressed by the quality of the submissions by non-incumbents."

Meek said Railtrack had become disenchanted with the range of quality within each of the existing maintenance contractor's territory. "Of the six contractors, all have some areas that are good and some that are not so good.

"It's surprising. I thought there would have been a clear pecking order between the six contractors, but in fact there is no consistency."

Five months ago, Railtrack introduced a key performance indicator system which measures 17 different aspects of contract management. Railtrack has 35 maintenance contract areas in total and sends in a 'flying squad' to the 10 worst performing areas to establish what is going wrong.