Missing the point

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Lord knows which 'senior person' at Eurostar dictated the article in Monday's FT about junking the existing trains and buying the Alstom AGV.

Presumably some non-railway manager worried by the Air France open access threat based on - er, buying AGV.

As any fule kno the sensible successor to the Class 373 would be a duplex double deck TGV - more capacity less length.

And if Eurostar were serious they would be working on the Inter-Governmental Commission to rationalise last century's over complicated safety rules which continue to hamstring the effective commercial operation of the Chunnel.

How about a bit of professionalism on both sides of the tape recorder chaps?

Almost new trains

FT reporting that Eurostar may be looking to procure new trains:

"A senior figure involved told the Financial Times the operator might buy the new AGV train unveiled this year by Alstom Transport instead of carrying out the mid-life refurbishment the 15-year-old trains would soon be due to undergo."

The current fleet certainly looks very tired.

Priorities

Good to see that Network Rail can read the runes.

NR treated Tory grandees to dinner last night, whilst the Smelly Socks were only offered drinkies in Manchester.

Penny wise NR didn't even do their own thing last week, preferring to share the costs of cheap plonk and curly sandwiches with ATOC!

But will last night's schmoozing be enough to stop the Tories unpicking NR's bloated empire?