Dominic Carey - **HAS LEFT**

Said the following about Dartmoor (Okehampton) Project Team:

“Great Western Railway (GWR) is one of the biggest rail franchises in the UK, part of the First Group of companies, operating the Western network since 1996, rebranding ourselves as GWR in 2015. We employ over 6000 people across our network and we carry more than one and a half million customers over two million single journeys on 10,000 services every week. People are at the heart of our business and our ethos is that we are 'greater together'.

The reopening of the Dartmoor Line after almost 50 years, the first railway to reopen as part of the Department for Transport Restoring your Railway initiative, took place on 20 November 2021, two years early and almost 10 million pounds under budget.

That the reopening was achieved in just 7 months and 28 days, from funding announcement to VIP opening, a truly amazing achievement! This was made possible by the incredible joint NR / GWR Project Team who took collaboration to a new level, improvising and adapting to overcome every challenge.

With the funding only being approved on 19 March 2021, and as the flagship scheme for the Restoring your Railway programme – a key No 10 policy, Network Rail and GWR teams were under immense pressure to complete the reopening in less than 9 months, against a backdrop of a global pandemic. Success was critical to the future of the Restoring your Railway programme and the entire rail industry, demonstrating to HM Treasury that the railway can deliver quickly and affordably at a time of substantial taxpayer support.

To succeed, formidable obstacles had to be overcome, from purchase of the private railway and mounting ecological issues, to a huge track upgrade programme, the latter requiring a record breaking 11 mile track replacement plan in only four weeks, and a two month driver training programme. That the reopening was achieved in only 7 months and 28 days, from funding announcement to VIP opening, was down to the incredible joint NR / GWR Project Team who took collaboration to a new level, improvising and adapting to overcome every challenge.

The team led by Christian Irwin (NR) and Matthew Barnes (GWR), who created a culture of belief, commitment and trust, adopted a ‘one team’ integrated approach from the beginning of the project. Starting with early development and production of the Business Case, undertaken jointly, a completely aligned NR / GWR front was presented to DfT building confidence in government, demonstrated at regular ‘deep dive’ sessions with the Rail Minister (Chris Heaton Harris) and the Prime Ministers Special Advisor (Andrew Gilligan). Key to the ‘one team’, alliance approach, was the creation of open and productive ways to communicate.

A joint Teams Channel, set up by GWR, provided a place for sharing information, increasing transparency and efficiency, and frequent short meetings were used to build relationships, share updates and resolve issues, driving pace into the project. A wide range of working groups provided structure and ensured widespread engagement, keeping local teams fully up to date with project milestones

A similar approach was adopted with key stakeholders, including Devon County Council, Dartmoor National Park, Devon & Cornwall CRP, OkeRail and Dartmoor Railway Association. Relationships of openness and trust with these partners helped them become incredible advocates in the community, ensuring any concerns were easily addressed and building excitement towards the reopening. An Integrated Communications Group provided a coordinated approach to ensure the comms were consistent and joined up throughout, starting with the establishment of an entire Dartmoor Line identity, website and comms campaign set up in a matter of weeks in February 2021 to launch the reopening. The Dartmoor Line identity, and website, proved a massive success, helping communicate effectively, build emotional attachment in the community and drive excitement for the reopening.

This led to incredible scenes for both the VIP opening, by the Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps, and the public opening with over 2,100 people on that first day. These events were organised at short notice, but thanks to the efforts of the joint communications and operations teams they were outstanding successes, providing memories that will go down in history. Complementing both events was the launch of the first seven day a week bus service from Tavistock to Okehampton since the railway closed, courtesy of GWRs vision for bus branch lines and Devon CC funding. The two areas of greatest collaboration were the station upgrade, which GWR and NR undertook jointly, and driver training. At Okehampton station, historic facilities presented fantastic opportunities to sympathetically modernise and the team worked together to do this. GWR provided its expertise to guide the scope of the works and complete customer experience upgrades (e.g SISS, TVM, signage etc), while NR carried out the main infrastructure work (platform and car park rebuilds and lighting replacement).

All this work was carried out at the same time in less than 8 weeks prior to opening, with NR and GWR contractors working harmoniously onsite despite the incredible time pressure, with all the while driver training continuing to use the platform for emergency egress. Driver training was always intended to take place once major works on the route had been completed but, due to ecological issues delaying many works, the joint project team had to work together to constantly adapt the driver training programme and parallel infrastructure works, to ensure both could be completed in only 8 weeks prior to opening. That this was successful is largely reflective of the work of the Exeter Driver team, who worked tirelessly as part of the project team and are the subject of a separate Excellence Awards entry. Throughout the project, the ‘one team’ approach, bringing together local experts from both NR and GWR, allowed problems to be worked through, solutions developed, and decisions made.

Examples of this included:

Greenslade bridge – using strong relationships with Devon CC to overcome the cancellation of the critical road closure hours before the works commenced (with crane already on route)

Ecological issues – constantly adapting plans to overcome Natural England license problems that prevented tree clearance on the heavily graded, damp and vegetated route. Examples include taking a chainsaw team on the first driver training run and mobilising the entire supply chain to remove 180 hazardous trees in a weekend to avoid delay to driver training.

Driver training – undertaking driver training in incredibly difficult circumstances, and against very tight timescales, overcoming poor adhesion and constantly changing speed restrictions due to the excessive vegetation and delayed infrastructure works (caused by ecology issues).

Station upgrades – completing the station upgrade in very tight timescales in the weeks before opening, with both NR and GWR contractors working onsite simultaneously, overcoming the failure of the tarmac supply chain less than 18 hours before VIP opening.

Rail Head Treatment Trains – organising, in less than a week, the operation of the RHTT for the VIP and public opening days, overcoming gauge clearance and route knowledge issues. This was essential for the public opening to allow the special hourly timetable to operate.

As a result of the relentless collaboration, problem solving and commitment to delivery, the project team delivered early and nearly 10 million pounds under budget.

Numerous teams within NR and GWR, with many hundreds involved, worked tirelessly ensuring the line reopened safely and on time, many insisting on changing leave, working weekends, early starts and late finishes to ensure this happened. They demonstrated incredible dedication and pride in their work and, remarkably, most have considered it a great privilege to have worked on this special project.

Delivering the reopening, without impact on day-to-day operations, against the backdrop of COVID, is an outstanding feat worthy of mention throughout GWRs long history.

The achievement and approach adopted by GWR and Network Rail also sets a benchmark for others to follow and paves the way for further initiatives of this nature across the UK.

The joint team deserves to win this award, as their achievement is a record making one, and the opening of the Okehampton line is very important moment in UK rail history.“