Gospel Oak to Barking Major Electrification Recovery Programme Management
Major Scheme programme recovery
Gospel Oak to Barking Electrification
Value
£171m
Period
2017-18
The Gospel Oak to Barking Electrification (GOBE) was a major UK rail programme in need of rapid recovery and highly coordinated delivery.
When programme pressures threatened the timeline, PACE took control of programme management and planning — restoring structure, pace and accountability, and delivering an electrified railway by January 2018.
Client : Network Rail
THE PROJECT
Full CSM Authorisation — an ORR significant project
DfT-funded to £171m, the Gospel Oak to Barking Electrification required Network Rail to electrify 11 miles of twin track — enabling the introduction of the TfL-owned, Arriva Rail London-operated Class 710 fleet. As a CSM significant project, it required full TSI compliance and APIS authorisation from the ORR before the new stock could enter service. The scheme was one of the first major CSM significant schemes to go through the full process, experiencing a solid learning curve and sharing the outcomes nationally.
THE CHALLENGE
A Programme Under Severe Time Pressure
GOBE was an electrification project in name only — 75% of the scheme was major civils and P-way, with track lowering and bridge jacking throughout. The civils held to plan, but electrification design fell badly behind, and the impact on the scheme was catastrophic. Piling and foundation designs were never validated against the overall system design — much of it failed against as-built tolerances and had to be redone.
Early procurement had already produced surplus, uncontrolled material stockpiles, with lead times of up to six months. The deadline was immovable: a 'no later than' agreement between TfL and the DfT required full electrification by January 2018 — when the new Class 710 fleet was due to start arriving.
WHAT WE DID
Leadership, management and stabilisation
Taking Control. Creating Momentum.
PACE took full control of programme management and planning, working alongside the existing Network Rail project and delivery teams to rapidly stabilise the programme.
Expanded Delivery Capacity
PACE developed a procurement strategy to bring four additional major OLE suppliers into the programme:
Balfour Beatty
Morgan Sindall
ABC Alliance
Hedson Rail
Rapid Design & As-Built Assessment
We initiated rapid assessments of the existing design and as-built conditions, allowing construction activities to be released as quickly as possible while identifying issues requiring resolution.
Centralised Programme Control
A rigorous weekly planning and construction cycle was introduced, supported by a centralised single source of truth for system and programme data.
This created greater visibility across design, construction, access, procurement, and delivery activities.
Accelerated Access Planning
Working with Anglia Route, we developed an access strategy that secured almost every weekend with 52-hour access, alongside two major seven- and nine-week blockades incorporated into the longer-term programme.
Logistics Management
A dedicated logistics company was brought into the programme to manage:
Materials in
Materials out
Storage
Stock levels
Material status
The Outcome
Energised railway delivered on time to the re-baseline.
The railway was electrified by January 2018 — on the immovable deadline. GOBE was the most political rail project in the UK at the time, and among the most intense delivery programmes many Network Rail and TfL directors had ever seen.
Francis Paonessa, then Managing Director of Network Rail's National Infrastructure Projects, credited the recovery and stabilisation as the quickest and most controlled he had ever seen in Network Rail. PACE led the programme — but the achievement of everyone involved was outstanding.