This from thisismoney.co.uk...
The successor company to Deutsche Reichsbahn, which ran the trains to Germany's Second World War death camps, won control of Sunderland-based transport group Arriva after a £1.6bn bid.
Gosh!
UPDATE: This from Captain Mainwaring...
Reichsplan phase 2 - in which the railways of Wales are taken over and the Cross-Country web brings a 5th Column penetration to all corners of the British mainland...
UPDATE: This from Billy Connections....
Confirmation that DB has been successful in its bid to take over Arriva is expected to result in a new system of seat reservation for CrossCountry Trains, which regularly suffer from overcrowding.
In response to complaints from passengers that the current miniature reservation displays, set into the overhead luggage racks at head height, are often wrong, or impossible to read - and on advice that these displays are not DDA compliant because of the small size of the lettering - a simplified system - TMS - is to be rolled out by the
end of 2011.
TMS or Towel Management System will, as the name implies, involve the laying out of a towel on any seats which have been reserved in advance.
This will be the duty of the Train Manager, although resistance is expected from RMT who consider this to be outside the current agreement for the "role of the guard".
Clearly the choice of TMS as the acronym is controversial as it is currently the designation for the onboard Train Management System, but with the German word for towel results on the phrase "Tuch-Management-System", which also results in the TMS acronym, DB has decided that the Train Management System will, in future, be known as the ZMS, based on the German "Zug-Management-System".
As a senior DB insider explained "The Towel, or Tuch, is such an important icon in German life we feel that the less important use of TMS for the onboard computer system will have to give way.
"We are also delighted to be introducing a new fully DDA compliant and environmentally friendly system for seat reservations."
The towels will be 100% Fairtrade cotton and, with careful handling, should give us many years of useful service.