Network Rail sorry for power cut chaos (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)
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Network Rail sorry for Radlett power cut chaos
2:40pm Thursday 28th February 2013 in News
By Zoe Forsey, Senior Reporter
Passengers faced three days of cancelled and delays trains into London from February 13. Picture: Martin Stewart
Network Rail has apologised for the overhead power failures that resulted in travel chaos for St Albans commuters earlier this month.
First Capital Connect passengers faced three days of cancelled and delays trains into London from Wednesday, February 13.
Phil Verster, route managing director at Network Rail, which looks after the infrastructure of train tracks across the county, said the authority’s programme of maintenance checks was up to date at the time of the failures.
He said: "Our initial investigations into the recent overhead power supply incidents at Radlett indicate that both incidents were caused by component failures.
"We are sorry for this and for the disruption many passengers will have experienced as a result.
"We have identified exactly which components failed and we are carrying out further work to establish the reasons so that we can minimise the chance of repeat failures in the future.
"Network Rail’s priority is to run a safe, reliable railway and we continuously monitor the track, signalling, overhead power supply and other infrastructure for signs of ageing and degradation so we can fix them before they cause disruption to passengers.
"We report these findings regularly to the Office of Rail Regulation, which oversees the actions we are taking to make the railway more reliable for the travelling public."
