East Coast Main Line

HC Deb 23 October 2001 vol 373 cc191-2W

2001 Mr. Lazarowicz

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions on how many occasions in(a)(b) 2000 and (c) 1999 services on the east coast main line have been disrupted owing to collapse or other failure of the overhead power cables; and what average length of delay has been caused to passenger services as a result. [6652]

Mr. Jamieson

The following lists from Railtrack show the number of overhead line failures attributable to Railtrack and the train operators respectively in 1999, 2000 and 2001Minutes delay to ECML passenger services due to overhead line problems period 11 (January) 1999 to end of period 6 (mid September 2001

Overhead line (excluding emergency speed restrictions) Overhead line emergency speed restrictions
Railtrack attributable	1999	2000	2001
Total minutes delay	15,812	20,037	16,445
Number of incidents	143	111	80
Average delay	111	181	206
Percentage of all delays on ECML	5.4	3.0	2.9
Total minutes delay	3,516	4,000	1,352
Number of incidents	14	23	20
Average delay	251	174	68

Pantograph
TOC attributable	1999	2000	2001
Total minutes delay	1—	387	16,445
Number of incidents	1—	5	80
Average delay	1—	77	206
Percentage of delays on ECML	1—	0.2	2.9
1 Data relating to these were not collected until 2000.