No road through Knockmore

Here’s an awful warning:

That’s from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch web-site. The RAIB is — finally — being allowed into the secret, two months on.

Yesterday evening, the BBC News website had picked up the story and published this:

More than 100 people escaped injury after a train ran over a section of damaged railway in County Antrim.
However, the full incident, which took place on 28 June, was not reported to an investigation team for two months.
The driver was unable to stop before the first of six carriages had run onto an unsupported section of track.
The train was bound for the Irish open golf tournament, over a line not normally used for passenger services.
The train did not derail and was reversed away.
The Rail Accident investigation Branch (RAIB) is looking into the incident at Knockmore, outside Lisburn at 07:05 on 28 June.

So that’s all right, then?

Not really.

At first sight this looks like a repeat of another near disaster when the Broadmeadow Viaduct, near Malahide, north of Dublin, was washed away. That was on the main Dublin-Belfast line (and on a major commuter route). Iarnród Éireann hadn’t inspected the viaduct, which was known from previous erosion to have stability problems, for three days.

The Knockmore line, of course, does not have that strategic importance — though, arguably, it has considerable potential:

It could provide a corridor through Antrim to the north coast and to Derry. Currently the intention remains to upgrade the A5 trunk road  from Derry to the south. This involves a total cost of at least £850 million — that estimate is already three years old. And only last week, the lead constructor, Mouchel, went bust. Meanwhile the fragile rail link along the spectacular coastline of County Londonderry is closed for many months — while the grand and long-overdue sum of £75 million is spent on it. Do the comparisons.

Beyond that, Belfast has two under-used airports (City of Derry is NI’s unsatisfactory and even more under-used third — it is right on the rail line, too): the Westminster Northern Ireland committee is taking minutes and lasting months chewing on all this. Dublin airport, by comparison, is heavily patronised, and — until recent cut-backs — was going to get a second runway, long enough for direct flights to the Far East. The Knockmore branch runs immediately behind the terminal at Belfast International: it could easily connect with central Belfast, and Dublin (particularly so, if and when the Metro North plan were implemented).

Politics. Politics. Politics.

The old Unionist regime at Stormont disgracefully ripped up the Ulster rail network. There may have been an economic case for retrenchment and “rationalisation”; but the main issue was to break unnatural connections with those damnable Fenians in the Free State. So a whole swathe of natural links were abruptly severed. Anyway, the motor car was the future.

From that, notice how , when the Malahide viaduct went down, so did any north-south link. Any rolling stock north was stuck there.

That map is unfair in that it omits the real improvements in the Dublin commuter belt — unlike Belfast which is liable to a daily tail-back along every arterial route. North of the Dublin commuter lines there isn’t a millimetre of electrified track; and any mass transport system to alleviate the Belfast photochemical smog — an airport tram, for one obvious example — is systematically rubbished. The present “dynamic” pie-in-the-sky is a “rapid-transit”, based — believe it or not — on Las Vegas. It amounts to a bendy-bus.

Knockmore is a symptom of wilful neglect

In this climate, the rail sector in Northern Ireland will continue to decline and decay.

Malcolm is left bemused left bemused by the bizarre insouciance evident in the Knockmore incident:

• A span of some fifteen sleepers and tracks was unsupported. A train was seemingly sent down that track, which is usually-unauthorised for passenger service, apparently without proper inspection. For heaven’s sake, were there any doubt s over the security of the line, why not run a pilot loco along it? That (and proper daily inspection by linesmen) was the Victorian approach — and still (linesmen apart) the norm for many lines.

• The collapse and a near calamity has gone two months without being reported or (apparently) investigated.

Questions (as they say) must be asked.

Tin-foil hat time?

Let’s put a few totally unrelated thoughts together:

As far back as May 2011:

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has been criticised in a report examining its operations in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Independent inspector John Vine said he was concerned at how it operated at major ports and airports.

He found senior managers focused on moving staff to passport control, potentially at the expense of detecting drugs and other illicit goods.

He also said it had not assessed the threat to small ports and airports.

On to the latest:

Mrs May is facing Labour demands to disclose whether any terror suspects are believed to have entered the country after border guards were instructed not to carry out certain passport checks.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has claimed that border controls were relaxed to keep queues down despite cuts to personnel. It also said the decision was authorised by ministers.

Sue Smith, of the PCS, blamed what she claimed had been a 10 per cent reduction in border force staff.

‘The travelling public understandably want to have a fast and efficient service, and yet we are also under a reduced workforce,’ she said.

‘So, I think senior managers have seen this as a way to provide the public with what they want.’

She added that senior managers had told the union that the changes to border checks had been made with the authorisation of ministers.

‘As far as our staff were concerned, this was all done with ministerial authority, and that’s the information we have received,’ she said.

What that means:

Apart from the obvious headline stuff, the 20% budget slash and staffing cutbacks — 5,000 jobs over four years —  in the UKBA means that “minor” ports and smaller airfields go without cover:

The operator of the flight undertakes full security and passport checks prior to the passenger’s arrival at the airport. This is then usually followed by a further, quick ID and baggage check before boarding, which means that the passengers are able to move through the F[ixed] B[ase] O[perator] very quickly once they arrive – without the security delays so often experienced at main airport terminals. Depending on the country, these final checks can often be undertaken by the staff of the FBO or handling agent.

Arrive by a private plane at a minor airfield and there’s no UKBA cover at all. Of course, such VIPs are “pre-screened” — aren’t they? Anyone, such decent, upstanding folk shouldn’t be inconvenienced to the same degradation as us peasants. Right?

Lydd?

Lydd airport was, immediately post-WW2, the main base for short-hops to France — it ran a well-publicised car-ferry lift to Le Touquet. Bring your Rolls, your Bentley, and we’ll have you on the golf-course or in the casino within the hour.

It has a 5,000 foot runway  not much short of Belfast City, Jersey, Derry City — and certainly longer than London City’s 3900 feet — all of which are up to running scheduled services.

That may add a touch of spice to Private Eye‘s recent report:

A PLANNING inspector is now settling down, after hearing eight months of evidence, to decide whether to back Shepway district councillors’ bizarre decision to grant permission for a runway extension and a new terminal at Lydd Airport against the strong advice of their own planning officers (Eyes passim).

But a court case earlier this year may throw some light on how decisions are reached in that part of Kent.

The airport’s former boss, Jordanian Zaher Deir, was suing owner Sheikh Fahad Al Athel (familiar to Eye readers as the Saudi arms dealer in the Al Yamamah scandal) over non-payment of directorship fees. In evidence, the sheikh challenged some of Deir’s spending on his company credit card. But Deir told the court that the purchases were not for his own benefit but, er, “gifts to councillors” to further the interests of the company.

Malcolm may be a conspiracy theorist, but  how decisions are reached in that part of Kent wouldn’t be his immediate thought there.

It might involve “arm dealer” and uncontrolled access to the UK.

Or, as Clive Aslet of Country Life wrote for the Daily Telegraph (albeit before the 2010 General Election):

Lydd lies at the end of a straggle of lanes which would not cope with the traffic of two million prospective passengers. Less than two miles away is a nuclear power station: not the sort of thing you would want to crash a 737 aircraft into, unless you happened to be a terrorist, of course. As for jobs, politicians tend to forget that local people might become baggage handlers but better paid work would go to more highly skilled workers brought in from outside.

The fact that Lydd airport is unlikely ever to be commercially profitable will not, of itself, influence the planning outcome. Under our glorious system, private individuals and companies are entitled to lose their money if they want to. But the rest of us have an interest in keeping this extraordinary and evocative place as it is. We live in uncertain times.

Thanks, Ethical Man!

Malcolm involved himself, again, in the mud-wrestle that is Slugger O’Toole‘s comments.

This should be regarded as a mistake, because it is as inevitable as an English team losing on penalties that the “discussion” will come down to a slanging match. Usually it is orange versus green, and everybody knows for which side to shout.

One of today’s side-dishes (the main course being the Irish General Election: two submissions, a knock-out or a twelfth recount to win) was City of Derry Airport. Much of Malcolm’s submission has already appeared here. Later, he found himself defending the City Council’s involvement in fostering Eglinton thus:

• Private enterprise has not been much in evidence in the Province in recent decades.
• The notion that the whole of Ulster (yes, Ulster) can be properly served, now and for the future, through Aldergrove and Dublin seems fallacious. That’s not in the local, provincial, national or European interest.
• Demand is increasing at at astounding rate, passenger traffic at regional airports doubles every 15 years (at Eglinton that has happened, albeit from a low base-line, in just two years).

Malcolm also knows there are many, and good arguments against airport expansion: they all receive endless publicity. Nevertheless, people, however much they intellectually are convinced by those arguments and publicity, still emotionally want to fly. Malcolm’s essential liberalism means he finds distasteful all the Green nay-saying which amounts to arguing that someone, somewhere must stop this Gardarene rush, deny ordinary folk their wish to holiday in Spain, inconvenience them, force them to conform, deny them occasional pleasures.

Malcolm felt just a trifle sweaty maintaining this, knowing the pressures of global warming and the consequent death of his beloved beech tree were somehow involved.

So, hooray for Justin Rowlatt, the BBC’s Ethical Man! He writes a delightful (and informative) blog at the Newsnight site:

here’s the good news: when you look at the numbers, modern jet aeroplanes are actually a very efficient form of transport.

Indeed, the jet engine is one of the most effective ways to convert the energy from fuel into thrust. The best jets are 37 per cent efficient. By contrast it seems modern petrol engines are around 25 per cent efficient while a finely tuned diesel will achieve, at best, 32 per cent efficiency…

The average jet plane now uses around 4.8 l/100 km per passenger – just a little worse than a Prius with no passengers. But the manufacturers say that modern jets are much more efficient.

Collooh! Callay! Malcolm chortled in his joy.

Now, of course, that does not mean we should belt around the planet for the sheer hell of it (a couple of hours as hostage of Ryanair would cure that affliction, anyway). Nor does it means we need Heathrow Terminal 19. It does mean that a bit of balance might, just might be reasserting itself.

Londonderry Air

It began with a quick check of the news:

The City of Derry Airport is being shut by the flight regulator until further notice because of safety concerns.

The Civil Aviation Authority decided to provisionally suspend its licence following an inspection this week.

Problems found include lack of an effective bird control plan, unsuitable temporary repairs to the area where planes park and poor runway drainage.

So Malcolm considered Eglinton, which has suffered the political equivalent of the Drigg/ Windscale/ Calder Hall/ Sellafield syndrome: successive name-changes for ulterior motives.

Strategy Foyled

Eglinton was one of three airfields (Eglinton, Ballykelly and Maydown) built during the early part of WW2, when this area was on the front line:

On two occasions in it’s [sic] history the city of Londonderry has played a pivotal part in the history of Europe. The first was the ‘great siege’ of 1689 when, over 105 days, the constitutional future of the British Isles and of Europe was decided in and around the city. The second occasion was even more important. In June 1940 the city became a naval base and was destined to become the Allies’ most important escort base in the Battle of the Atlantic. Not only did Europe’s future depend on this base but so also did the political shape of the post-war world.

Had the Allies lost the Battle of the Atlantic, the Nazi domination of Europe could not have been broken and Hitler’s dictatorship would have continued. Winning the Battle of the Atlantic allowed the western Allies to invade Europe and led to the final defeat of Nazism. The naval base at Derry – shared by the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the United States Navy – was vital to the protection of convoys in the Atlantic and, at one time, 140 Allied escort ships were based on the Foyle.

The Foyle was the advance base of Western Approaches command, and so ‘Derry (stuffed with service personnel) was a prime target. Much of the blame for the neglect of air defence (one of many derelictions) in the Province should rest on the Unionist government in Stormont, and in particular the moribund Craig and the incompetent Andrews:

Due in large part to earlier ministerial neglect and prevarication, local defences were hopelessly inadequate, and the public were physically and psychologically unprepared for the blitz. In September 1940, both Belfast and Londonderry had been provided with a light balloon barrage, which was marginally reinforced six months later. By the spring of 1941, the strength of the anti-aircraft barrage in Northern Ireland had risen to 24 heavy guns and 14 light guns. Twenty-two of these were located in Belfast (6 light and 16 heavy). Four were sited at Londonderry; more were to be transferred from Cardiff, but the Luftwaffe arrived before the guns did.

The Churchill Government in Westminster were not so lax. Since only Operation Barbarossa forestalled an inevitable Blitz of ‘Derry, by 1942, there was an over-provision of airfields.

A regional airport

Londonderry County Borough acquired the site in 1978, though for the next twenty years only Loganair operated there. European Regional Development money upgraded the facilities in the early ’90s. The newly politically-correct “City of Derry Airport” opened in 1994, but it took until 1999 for Falcon Holidays to begin charter flights and Ryanair to begin a scheduled service. This was not entirely neglect: climate and location suggest that, for all-year operations, aircraft need to have a certain size about them.

Griping

By objective standards, the airport has been something of a success: it is well on the way to half a million passengers a year. This is Northern Ireland, so there has to be controversy. A quick flick to Slugger O’Toole tells us that “Truck loads of money have been thrown at this airport”; and refers to “the squillions squandered”.

Now compare that with the reality:

[1]

“The European Commission has authorised, under EC state aid guidelines, a plan to fund a number of essential infrastructure improvements at the City of Derry Airport. The plan involves joint financing of the infrastructure by the UK and Irish governments together with Derry City Council, the airport’s owner.

“The proposed financing was considered compatible with the European common market as it satisfies the criteria laid down in state aid guidelines; it constitutes essential infrastructure designed to achieve a clearly defined objective of general interest without leading to undue distortion of the market.

“The measure in question concerns the intention of the United Kingdom and Irish governments to provide over £10.4 million (EUR 15.2 million) of financial assistance to Derry City Council to meet 75% of the cost of two capital development projects at the airport. Each government will pay 37.5%, approximately £5.2 million (EUR 7.6 million) of the expenditure, while Derry City Council will contribute the remaining 25%, approximately £3.48 million (EUR 5 million).”

[2]

Mr. Dermot Ahern, T.D., Minister for Foreign Affairs, said: “City of Derry Airport serves the entire North West region. Recognising its strategic importance, the Government has decided to increase its funding to allow the completion of development works at the Airport.”

“The Government will contribute a total of €10.87 million to works at the Airport. The Government’s contribution is matched by the British Government under the co-funding arrangements agreed by the two Governments in March 2005.”

The airport’s critics (and they are many) have a couple of common characteristics: they tend to be from the east of the Province (and the mental distance from Belfast to ‘Derry can be immense) and they tend to have the usual “Stroke City” sectarian objections. Four main issues seem to arise, and are often confused:

[1] The financing of desirable and necessary upgrades to the airport (a process which, in fact, is open and transparent, necessarily so because of the tripartite involvement of two Governments and the EC).

[2] The smaller (and, sadly, less open and transparent) issue of the subsidy to Ryanair:

The agreement struck in 1999 guaranteed Ryanair £250,000 (€380,000) a year from a consortium of four state-funded authorities on both sides of the Irish border to promote its Derry to London route. A range of other taxpayer-subsidised benefits included free landing, navigation, air control, security, baggage and passenger charges, were also given.

[3] The deficit on operating the airport:

Its operating costs are around £3.5m a year, but revenue is about £2m. The losses are met by the council.

To put this into proportion, it need to be compared with:

• the Derry city budget as a whole (a bit less than £31M);

and expenditure on other local transport, for example

• the announcement from Conor Murphy of £12M extra for roads in Derry City this year.

[4] On the lunatic fringe, the SEA [i.e. Eamonn McCann's eccentric local Trottery] protesting the Donnybrewer Road houses, and attempting to elevate it into an extension of the Land War.

A soft landing

The CAA’s inspection (and closure order) seem to be confined to three points:

concerns about the drainage of the runway, the facility for parking planes and its bird control plan.

None of these seems insuperable (and it seems that the CAA took over a week between its inspection and issuing the order, which hardly implies urgency). Drainage can hardly be a recent problem, for it was recognised in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica:

The excessive rainfall and the cold and uncertain climate are unfavourable for agriculture.

The aircraft parking seems to amount to dissatisfaction with recent temporary repairs to the hard standings, and “bird control” invites Malcolm to invoke the Duke of Wellington:

“Try sparrow-hawks, Ma’am.”