IEP lobbying explained

This just in from Jumbo...

Overheard on the Derby train: A man telling his travelling companions that he is shortly to meet Captain Deltic and convince him that the bi-mode extravaganza will save the world.

Shome mishtake shurely?

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

How intriguing.

I am indeed going to Ashford Depot tomorrow on a technical visit to find out how the Hitachi Class 395 fleet and the Class 465 re-powering is going and an SET update has been promised over a working lunch.

If Jumbo will provide details of the train I will ask which of those present was on it and actually admitting to talking to me.

They must be coming up to retirement.

UPDATE: Jumbo responds...

I thought that the IEP only had one supporter.

UPDATE: More from Captain Deltic...

Having fallen off his chair laughing the Captain gets his breath back and points out that Jumbo is being very naughty.

So which train from Euston to Rugby was it?

UPDATE: This from our International Correspondent...

What perfect symmetry.

Uncloaking industry secrets by ear-wigging over-talkative and indiscreet rolling stock engineers in the First Class end of anything leaving Derby was an intelligence gathering technique pioneered in the early 80s by one Captain Deltic, in between bouts of car-park watching (a practice now known more colloquially as 'Dogging').

Of course he was just a junior subaltern in those days.

UPDATE: Captain Deltic reminisces...

It was on a train to Derby that a foursome of Department of Transport civil servants were talking about closing the WCML north of Preston.

They didn't seem to notice that I was taking notes.

A minor stir, denials and a witch hunt ensued following publication.

Odd that while DfT is daft, we never referred to DoT as dotty.

It must have been the age of deference. Or perhaps in those dim and distant days the civil service had higher standards of competence.

UPDATE: Further cryptic details from Jumbo...

Definitely a train to Derby, well Sheffield to be strictly correct.

And a clue, it was not the noble Lord but another recently ennobled person, well gonged actually...