Ministry of Truth

Is the National Audit Office now colluding in DafT's dishonest declarations about the amount of new rolling stock it has ordered?

According to the BBC it is:

"The NAO said 1,300 new train carriages had been ordered, and ministers say they are tackling passenger growth."

Poppycock!

Captain Deltic calculates that, "because of a combination of double counting and someone in DafT keying in 42 (for 24) the real total is only 1,156 vehicles".

He is of course an optimist!

Meanwhile it is disingenuous for the BBC to claim "ministers say they are tackling passenger growth" because none of these vehicles have been built yet!

So BBC - bias or balls-up?

Mad Cowes

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
According to a reader's letter in today's Daily Telegraph:

'In the 50 years of nationalised railways virtually no repair or maintenance was carried out and it took 10 years after privatisation and a mountain of money to bring them up to scratch'.

The writer lives in the Isle of Wight, and probably has restricted access to sharp implements.

Health warning

The Fact Compiler has received the following helpful information from a reader:

As there is a lot of meeting and greeting in the railway industry this news story is a salutary warning

Northerners have the dirtiest hands!

Those attending the NRM dinner on 23rd October may be well advised to wear latex gloves.

ECML delay

The chaos caused by Network Rail's publication of it's East Coast capacity assessment report continues unabated.

Latest to be hit by the mad scribblings of NR's timetable planners are those hoping for additional ECML paths in the December timetable.

ORR's announcement on who had won the paths was due at the end of October, but the regulatory body is now blaming the East Coast capacity assessment for its inability to reach a decision.

As yet no new date for this announcement has been set.

What was Network Rail thinking of?