Much excitement tonight amongst the railway chatterati!
From next Monday there will be a new Managing Editor of Railnews!
And its a Mr Harris!
But which one?
Could it be Tom - the off message MP?
Or Nigel - star of Rail, TV and the National Rail Awards?
Or maybe Sim - late of Rail Manager on-line fame?
Here's a clue...
Perhaps more a case of changing, rather than keeping, track....
Eye welcomes the new South Central franchise which began operation yesterday
The franchise was awarded to current operator Govia (a Go-Ahead and Keolis joint venture) and will see the continuation of the Southern brand.
But what's this?
The winning bid was based on 4% revenue growth over the first two years of the franchises life.
Alas.
What looked a 'toppy' bid may now turn into a Herculean challenge.
This from the BBC...
London Underground (LU) has been hit by a fall of 190,000 journeys a day, with the recession and job losses blamed... August journey figures were 6.4% lower than the same month last year, Transport for London (TfL) said.
With loadings down on LU no doubt similar pain is being felt by NSE TOCs as well.
Watch out for eye-watering increases in unregulated ticket prices and car park charges as Govia struggles to balance the books.
This from Roger Ford's latest Informed Sources ePreview:
Talk about hubris, my warm glow at having networked the home soon vanished when nemesis followed and a few days later my computer not only wouldn’t connect to the internet over broadband, the back up dial-up stopped working too.
The Fact Compiler fears that this may have been premeditated rather than misfortunate.
Perhaps Captain Deltic should contact the Association of Old Crows to protect himself from future attacks?
Telegrammed by Leo Pink
Term of ill omen?
In his letter summing up the results of the the two workshops held with Public Members earlier this month new Network Rail Chairman Rick Haythornthwaite refers to a facilitator present at the events as "a thought leader in institutional investment governance".
Just what NR needs - state of the art management jargon.
Exciting news from the LibDems!
This from the Evening Standard...
Crossrail not a key priority for us, warns Vince Cable.
Zzzzz...
UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...
At least Vince had a go at the "scandal" of the still empty Waterloo International Terminal.
The other parties are positively supine about it.
Hot on the tail of the Pilgrimage of Grice, the Noble Lord has taken to exploring the motorway network.
Details of the Marple's Memorial Meander here.
It will be interesting to see whether, after fighting his way around the UK road network for a week, Lord Adonis has an appetite to divert more funds into roads to relieve congestion, or whether he argues even more strongly that the railways should be developed, to get people out of their cars.
Can he hold his nerve, or will he bottle it?
UPDATE: This from Tom over at Boriswatch...
It's interesting that Lord Adonis meets up with the Chairman of the RAC Foundation straight off the bat, who are the spiritual successor to the rabid interventionist road lobby of the 1960s to 1980s.
On the other hand it's highly amusing that said gentleman had to take to the train to avoid the M25 jams...
UPDATE: Captain Deltic in calculating mood asks...
Shouldn't we know what car Lord Adonis is driving?
And what miles per gallon it is achieving?
And what average speed he is assuming to get to these various meetings on time?
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