Delay and disruption claims on rail programmes usually turn on something most general construction disputes don't have to deal with: possession windows.
Electrification, signalling and HV power work on a live railway often can only happen within narrow, pre-booked possession periods — overnight, over a weekend, or during a planned line closure. Miss a possession window because of an upstream delay, and the next available slot might be weeks away, turning what looks like a short delay on paper into a much longer one in practice.
Analysing rail delay properly means understanding the possession regime as well as the programme logic — the two are inseparable on this asset class.
