More NR timetabling woes

This from The Street of Shame...

Yesterday Network Rail sent an e-mail to the trade press hacks headed:

INVITATION: Network Rail preliminary results media dinner June 8, 2010

It contained details of the venue for the event, invitations for which had been sent out some time ago

It said:

The dinner will be held on the evening of June 8, from 7pm

Sadly the original invitation stated the do was on Thursday 10 June.

Perhaps relying on the Integrated Train Planning System for media events was a touch over-optimistic?

UPDATE: This from The Archer...

Perhaps the dinner tonight is the preliminary results dinner and Thursday is the dinner for the preliminary results?

Tube Lines recruits old hand

Andie Harper has been named by TfL as the Chief Executive designate of Tube Lines.

Recruited from Aecom Andie was formerly the Chief Exec of Metronet - again appointed by TfL after the doomed private contractor was brought back in-house.

And he is no stranger to the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, having been MD of Infraco JNP when it was in shadow running mode, prior to privatisation.

Better the devil you know...

A game of Hyde and seek at East Coast

Word reaches Eye that East Coast is short one Head of Communications.

The Fact Compiler hopes that the nationalised operator hasn't taken to shooting the messenger?

Railway Magazine for sale

According to yesterday's City AM...

IPC Media is in the process of selling 28 hobby titles including Cage & Aviary Birds and The Railway Magazine.

Strange bedfellows indeed.

DfT prepares for the worst

This with a bowler tip to Oily Spanner...

It's good to see that the Civil Service is preparing for hard times.

Why no less a figure than Robert Devereux, Permanent Secretary at the DfT has been brushing up his busking skills:

For years I have joined a scratch choir of local residents which tours the streets singing carols before Christmas.

Now repeat after Eye:

"Spare the price of a cup of tea guv'?"

Pointless signs - Pedants' Corner

Regular Eye readers will recall that the Fact Compiler was recently taken to task for using 'less' rather than 'fewer' when referring to countable objects.

This with a bowler tip to P...


It would appear that the Linguistic Mafia are now taking matters into their own hands.

Railway Garden Competition - York

This from Alex C...

Pictured is York between platforms 9 & 10.


Note the irrigation facility...

Coucher worth every penny!

This guff from Saturday's Times...

The boss of Britain’s railways, who is paid more than four times as much as the Prime Minister, has said that he would refuse to take a pay cut and that he is worth every penny of his £613,000 salary.

Evidently we are all in this together!

Apart, of course, from some of us.

UPDATE: This from Jumbo...

No doubt people who work in a company that perpetuates the myth that trains up to 10 minutes late are actually on time find it equally easy to have illusions about their salary level.

Less to be cut from transport - Official

Good news from Petrol-head's new improved Department for Transport!

In the first round of government spending cuts a massive 11% was shaved off the Transport budget.

However, yesterday's Daily Express contained the following encouraging news:

METRIC measurements of distance have been banned by the new Transport Secretary in official communications dealing with Britain’s road, rail and air network.

Good news indeed.

After all, cutting 1,000 miles of railway sounds so much more palatable than 1,609 kilometers.