27 January (Part 2) - The Transport Users’ Committee - Journey 3
I can’t tell you who was at the Transport Committee to represent Network Rail
because Bexley Council’s brilliant seating plan doesn’t allow members of the
public to see, but he is seated back to camera and central in the photograph below.
He was a substitute so I can’t even guess his name.
Before directing attention fully to Network Rail issues, Councillor Stefano
Borella (Labour, North End) said he favoured public ownership of the Metro
operators which provoked laughter and implied ridicule. Councillor Davey
(Conservative, Crayford) could
not resist taking the mickey out of British Rail so it was perhaps a little
ironic that the very next day
the Mayor’s office said it was planning a take
over by TfL. Both Stefano and Chairman Val Clark expressed a preference for a TfL takeover, I’m not sure why, perhaps I have just been unlucky when travelling
on the Overground.
A school governor said that since
Network Rail removed the trees from the line
east of Abbey Wood station past my own house, teachers at Northwood Primary School had to stop
teaching when trains went past because no one could hear at that time. I can
only agree, since the vegetation was cut back I now have a perfect view of the
trains down to wheel level and it was for several years not possible to see them
at all. There has definitely been a noticeable increase in noise levels though
behind the double glazing I would not claim it was a nuisance.
Mike Gibson (Southeastern) believed, as I did, that a noise screen was to be provided but the NR man
didn’t think so. The Chairman only knew of sound barriers to the west of the station.
She may be right. I went to
the same Liaison Panel meeting as she did.
The Chairman brought up the question of the Barnehurst landslip again, reminding
us that it had happened in 2014 too.
The NR man said that the site had been assessed as “an extreme weather site
subject to a much more rigorous assessment process”. It was assessed in 2015 as
being “structurally sound’ and therefore given “less assessment than a
site in poor condition”.
“The amount of weather over the Christmas destabilized that and it was not
something we could have foreseen”. The site is to be given “even more rigorous assessment”.
It’s a pity that a rail broke nearby last Monday. Maybe public ownership is not
so clever after all. The meeting moved on to the subject of buses.
Transport User’s Committee: Police report.
Transport User’s Committee: Southeastern report.