By Rowland Ataguba
Travelling through London Bridge station last night evoking memories. Echoes of the Hop Exchange on Southwark Street and Network Rail’s then Major Projects & Investment unit.
18 years ago, I ran my portfolio of over 80 projects from here. Projects spread across the entire network with my motley crew of 4 scheme project managers and the attendant capacity issues. Support from project controls, commercial managers, buyers and programme management among others. Spacia our long suffering internal client which has now been sold off.
My Projects in Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, London, Dawlish, Leeds, Aberdeen, Warrington, Birmingham, Salford, Urmston, Monifieth, Huddersfield….. were in various stages of GRIP (now PACE). Each had unique character that made it special, but the Dawlish signal box is perhaps the one I remember the most.
The sheer scale of what we were trying to do was what was overwhelming. There was a lot of dilapidation and abandonment, a lot of deferred maintenance to catch up with from the locust days of British Rail, even forgotten assets that no one remembered existed. That Network Rail was a company in transition, or shall we say with the imminent GBR, a company in apparent perpetual transition. It is probably the only part of British Rail (via Railtrack) that has retained the latent civil service culture. It certainly felt that way. We hardly sacked anyone. Just shuffled the pack..
London Bridge Station has changed much. The iconic Shard, a celebration of that transformation. Covid has certainly changed the way we work. I must get out more often.
In many ways British Rail (BR) of yore reminds of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) of today. BR had this byline which said, _”we are getting there”_, except they never got anywhere. Until Margie Thatcher saved them from themselves by unbundling it. Now it would seem, some dewy eyed rose tinted nostalgic romanticism is drawing us back towards renationalisation of sorts. I say look carefully before you leap!
The franchise system may have introduced text book competition that probably ended up throwing out the baby with the bath water. Covid providing the final nail in the coffin. But any system that disenfranchises innovators like Virgin and Stagecoach was begging questions. The move toward open access on viable corridors is certainly in the right direction. It is what you do with the rest that arouses the sweat beads.
NRC was built by the British colonials along the lines of British Rail. It has remained exactly as it was structured in its over 100 years with only minor albeit insignificant changes. It remains a government owned department, exclusive owner and operator of the federal government’s railway undertaking as well as regulator of all railways in the country. It is underfunded and lacks the capacity to compete in its markets. Restructuring the Nigerian railway environment to deliver a sustainable railway system remains the challenge of our times. So help us God.