QR's Rail Fail DB Review - Finds the bleeding obvious!

Screenshot from DB report.

Over 300 days after the start of Queensland Rail's (QR) Rail Fail, an independent investigation by consultants from Deutche Bahn (DB) has told Queensland Rail exactly what BrizCommuter has been saying for the last three quarters of a year. The main findings are:

• The New Generation Rollingstock (NGR) project, also dubbed as Not Going Right, is a complete disaster with 140 technical issues at the time of the review. Whilst India is not renowned for it's manufacturing industry, it seems that a lot of the flaws are in the "Queenslander" specifications and design. 
• That the 18 NGR trains required for the proposed Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (GC2018) is not likely to be achieved. 
• That there are not enough train crew to operate the proposed timetable for the GC2018 - this will result in cuts to services on train lines other than the Gold Coast Line, which BrizCommuter has been warning about since November 2016. 
• The geriatric EMU trains are becoming a reliability liability, adding to risks for GC2018. 
• Fragmented IT systems, with high risk from cyber attack. 
• That QR's customer service is good. Really? BrizCommuter assumes that DB didn't ask any passengers about this?
• Risk in 40 year life cycle for SMU and IMU trains. Time to order more NGR trains?
• High rate of overtime dependance. 
• Fragmented organisational structure. 
• General lack of trust and partnership between QR and TransLink/Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR).

So what needs to happen?

• Realistically, QR is a failed organisation that can probably only be fixed by privatisation with a train operator that knows what it is doing, such as DB or MTR. 
• TMR's governance of public transport is a failure. There needs to be better governance of public transport in Queensland, maybe following Perth's example of governance with a public transport only body. 
• DG TMR Neil Scales should be sent packing back to England. 
• That the #GC2018railfail is inevitable, resulting in reduced services on lines other than the Gold Coast Line before, during, and after the Commonwealth Games. Politicians need to stop hiding the truth from the public. 
• More NGR trains need to be ordered, once the design flaws are fixed. 

The DB Whole of Business Review of Queensland Rail report:

https://www.cru.qld.gov.au/resources/20170720%20QR%20Whole%20of%20Business%20Review%20-%20DB%20EC%20final%20presentation.pdf