Spot the difference

With apologies to all those who didn't attend the Golden Spanner awards as this will make no sense at all.

Come back Haydn...

Along to Modern Railway's Golden Spanner awards which celebrate the best improvements in fleet performance.

With the police busy locking up MPs who have embarrassed the Supreme Leader it is only right that today's awards ceremony should reflect the Age of Change.

Thus Comrade Deltic addressed the gathering from the podium and unveiled stunning train production figures for the next five years.


A number of comrades were seen to leave early. Their details have been recorded!

Alas, the same cannot be said for Rosco Angel Trains - which owned none of the winning fleets.

UPDATE: Generalismo Deltic writes:

"Generalissimo Deltic asks Eye to point out that the most reliable Intercity fleet is the IC225 trains operated by the East Coast Workers Collective and that it is the aim of the revanchist running dog lackeys of Marsham Street to replace these at an early date with the so called IEP which is likely to be the least reliable Intercity fleet .

"If this adventurism continues, the Generalissimo urges the serried ranks of railway workers, peasant and intellectuals, to rise up! And standing shoulder to shoulder to deliver a stunning rebuff to these decadent paper tigers, masquerading as rail management, as they cower in their bunkers."

Railway AgitProp Communique No 1

Last supper

Norfolk bon viveurs continue to campaign vigourously for the retention of restaurant cars on National Express East Anglia services.

With mounting local fury and accusations that removal of the caterers will be a breach of the franchise terms it's all looking slightly messy.

However, there is one piece of good news for the beleagured bus bandits.

Unused to the wicked ways of the world the innocents of Norfolk have trustingly petitioned Gordon Brown, emploring him to retain restuarant cars.

Blind fools! Newly enervated Comrade Brown has little time for such bourgeois frippery, especially as The Age of Change will consign all such extravagences to oblivion through the twin agents of recession and tax hikes. Long live the Proletarian Revolution! Long live the Age of Change!

Angry bonce?

More exciting news from the world of Kettles

A reader writes to pose the following interesting technical question:

"If Tornado's test runs have been so successful why did the team have to remetal the inside crosshead?"

Answers on a postcard please to Running (Hot) Foreman, York MPD

UPDATE: A contributor writes:

Surely the purpose of test running is precisely to flush out any minor mechanical flaws?

A hot crosshead resulting from a slightly inadequate oil way is exactly the sort of thing I’d expect during trials and is therefore hardly a valid target for your sharp approach.

Hey, there’s a real argument that to suffer only a hot crosshead on a brand new standard gauge engine is a triumph of testing, not a failure....?

The Fact Compiler will get his coat...