What's missing...

...from this over-excited tosh?

"Eurostar... has appointed RAPP (formerly WAVV RAPP COLLINS) to support its Pan European Customer Relationship Management, Loyalty and E-commerce programmes.

"RAPP has been appointed to the consolidated account and will be tasked with supporting Eurostar across these three core areas. Over the coming months, Eurostar will be further developing its traveller communications and refining its award winning website eurostar.com to continue to push the standards of the customer experience."

Etc... etc... yawn.

Perhaps a big fat capital 'C' ?

Poptastic!

***LNWR sold to Arriva***

Crewe should be so lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky

Float like a butterfly...

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
...answer like a weasel!

Written answers Monday, 17 November 2008, House of Lords

Lord Bradshaw (Spokesperson in the Lords, Transport; Liberal Democrat) | Hansard
Whether the 40 additional vehicles which First Great Western will receive for Paddington suburban services will be new vehicles, as stated in the Department for Transport's Rolling Stock Plan of January 2008.

Lord Adonis (Minister of State, Department for Transport; Labour)
The Government's Rolling Stock Plan of January 2008 stated that the assumed actions and numbers of vehicles were not prescriptive. The update to the plan, published in July 2008 and available on the Department for Transport website stated that different numbers would be announced only when the Government contracted with the operator for more or fewer vehicles. Discussions with First Great Western on detailed plans are in progress.

Errr.... Yes Minister.

FOI shock horror

Tom Harris has pre-empted a highly embarrassing Freedom of Information request by publishing the offending document on his own blog.

Read Tom's shock disclosure here.

12 out of 13 ain't bad!

High premia costing dear

National Express is to shed 300 rail jobs according to The Independent.

Read the Indy piece here.

Or indeed Railway Eye from October if you like your news a little earlier.

Boiled Frog

Bowker's Law says there are only two sources of railway funding - from the fare box and the tax payer.

The Public Accounts Committee have kindly provided last year's figures for these.

In 2006/07, passengers paid £5.1 billion into the fare box.

Whilst the Department for Transport gave £3.4 billion to Network Rail and a further £1.7 billion to the Train Operating Companies.

Total amount of our taxes spent on the 'privatised' railways in 2006/07 = £5.1bn

Total amount of our taxes spent on the nationalised railway in 1993/94 = £1.46bn (figure corrected for inflation).

Future in the past

Telegrammed by The Master
Inter TOC co-operation and holding connections for late services isn't always the stuff of myth, as passengers on todays 0845 Padd - Swansea have found out.

Those punters using the train to get to Fishguard anxiously scanned their watches (or admired flooded fields) as their train was held outside Bristol Parkway due to an AXC service blocking its path.

Perhaps Arriva felt guilty, as the TM on the FGW train came on the PA to apologise for the delay and announce that ATW had agreed to hold the connection and allow punters to make their train.

So, if it can be done on this occasion...

McNaughton to Balfour Beatty?

***Balfour Beatty, the international engineering, construction, services and investment Group announces the appointment of Andrew McNaughton to the new role of Chief Operating Officer and to the Board of Balfour Beatty plc. The new appointment becomes effective from 1 January 2009.***

UPDATE: The Fact Compiler is grateful to a reader for the following observation:

"The McNaughton in question joined Balfour Beatty in 1997... so it can't be the good prof - unless he's been moonlighting for the last decade!"

Shame - was looking like such a great story...

Masters and servants

FCC certainly knows how to win friends and influence people.

As Enfield North MP, Joan Ryan, discovered when she handed out leaflets at Enfield Chase station, encouraging passengers to complain to FCC about a lack of ticket issuing facilities.

So enraged was the sweary-sounding-franchise that it threatened to charge the MP for processing any resulting complaints!

But wait a minute, perhaps such an arrangement might prove beneficial to hard pressed tax payers.

Were FCC to charge Ms Ryan for processing any complaints resulting from her leafleting campaign, then it would only be fair for Ms Ryan to charge FCC for handling the not inconsiderable number of complaints her office receives about their services.

In 2006 Joan Ryan MP claimed expenses and allowances of £173,691 - making her the third most expensive MP in Parliament.

Bring it on FCC!