Pointless signs - Charing Cross

Trainy Speakibold - Petrol-head Hammond

This from our very own Secretary of State for Transport...

"A key focus of this audit will be the effectiveness of implementation of the Review recommendations and the extent to which additional measures are necessary to deliver the expected outcomes for them."

Perhaps worth reminding the SofS that a stream of words does not necessarily equate to useful information...

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

If the SoS is concerned about 'real passengers' , there must be an opposite category of 'unreal' passengers.

Does he mean passengers on trains and at stations as opposed to people who are thinking about becoming passengers? Is there a single adjective? I rather like 'putative'.

Eye readers can no doubt help.

UPDATE: This from Our International Correspondent...

Real passengers are carbon-based, 80% water, have a valid ticket, and are sometimes invited to stay overnight in trains courtesy of Sir Herbert Walker's wrong-type-of-third-rail legacy.

Unreal passengers are smaller, made by Airfix and you have to cut them off a sprue and paint them.

UPDATE: This from Mr Tuppence Worth...

My commute is provided by one of two TOCs – one being Souter’s route to the capital, the other having moved into the hands of DB earlier this year.

The former have issued an emergency timetable the past two days and their usual website has been replaced with key information for would-be patrons including said timetable. This strategy has enabled them to cope with both fewer staff showing up and reduced rolling stock and network reliability/availability. To all intents and purposes they have kept to their revised plans.

The latter have been a little more optimistic and claimed to be able to run a full service south of the Antonine Wall. Needless to say, they haven’t kept to that for the past two days and made numerous cancellations and curtailments, and been subject to many a delay.

So which is more beneficial to passengers: bold ambition or humble realism?

UPDATE: This from a Lucas Skybanker...

After the pathetic availability of info this week I would have thought all the franchises and whoever it is who controls timetable and running info should make it freely available to developers and re-publishers.

Sadly ATOC appears to be determined to milk this data for all it's worth.

On the tube it is easy to see how things are going, you can simply look up a map showing train movements in real time.

Shouldn't all trains have GPS on them with real time info on their position available to all?

UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...

I see that Petrol-head has asked David Quarmby to audit the performance of various transport modes during the recent severe weather.

Perhaps a strange choice as Quarmby just happens to be Chairman of road lobby group the RAC Foundation.

Of course Quarmby is welcome to audit the railways, providing Hammond asks Swampy to do the same for the road network.

UPDATE: This from The Archer and numerous others...

I suspect this is a simple typo and should have read Rail Passengers, the audit will after all look into various transport modes.

Still, pretty shocking that this typo wasn’t picked up, particularly given the increased importance of information during periods of disruption!

My message to the SoS is clear: dictated letters must be proof-read.