East Coast tweets it like it is...

Seen on twitter earlier this afternoon...

Good effort! 

That is all.

UPDATE: This from the late Sir Edward Heath...

I am disturbed to see East Coast using gallons rather than litres.

Under my inspired leadership, and since the 1970s, the UK has been using... (cont' p94).

Oh... Gotti off! Ed

Government parks tanks on ROSCOs front lawn

This from Virginia Water...

According to the Pink-un yesterday:

The £1bn order for new trains for the Crossrail east-west London rail line will be among the first recipients of a government guarantee designed to revive investment in essential infrastructure, Danny Alexander will announce on Tuesday.

Your exam questions for today are therefore;

1. This guarantee is being offered to reduce the lease payments and hence long term rail subsidy bill.  On that basis, why doesn't the Treasury and DfT offer this finance to all future rolling stock deals?

2. If Treasury/DfT is guaranteeing all rolling stock, why not just RAB finance the lot?

3. What are the implications for the as yet unsigned Thameslink order? and

4. What does this mean for the future of the ROSCOs?

Privitisation is dead. Long live state intervention!

UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...

Surely the deeply unpopular LibDems don't propose using this finance method to pay for the Thameslink fleet which will be built entirely in Germany?

Or the Crossrail fleet which will no doubt be manufactured in Japan and ahem... 'assembled' by three men and a dog at Newton Aycliffe.

Good to see taxpayers money being used to export skilled jobs overseas!

Pointless signs - King's Cross

UPDATE: This from Dr Strabismus

Au contraire.

 

I saw this the other day and thought to myself “how pointful, informing the plebs and oiks who aren’t purchasing franchised comestibles that all and sundry may sit here without fear of ejection, thereby depriving your humble correspondent of a comfy spot to sit and write postcards”.  

 

Although a forest of similar seats has suddenly appeared beneath the departures board, albeit already inhabited by the homeless (despite the absence of a pointless sign).

UPDATE: This from Geddes Axe...

Surely the sign is to tell passengers that seating in what may appear to be a food area (where the passenger might expect a seating-only-for-food-purchasers policy as applies to every other similar space) is in fact available to everyone, without their having to buy food or drink. That is information that needs communicating if passengers are to take advantage of the concession.

Given the size of penalty facing the Advance ticket holder who misses their train, the rational behaviour of the cash-conscious passenger is to aim to arrive at the departure station a long time before their train, in case you get held up on the way. That means that one often ends up with considerable time to kill at the station. Not sure about the new KX, but at St Pancras, that usually means standing up (or sitting on the floor) if your budget doesn't run to eating out - there were (when I last counted) just ten public seats available for East Midlands passengers wanting to sit down while they waited for their train.

Station operators pay little concern for the needs of the passenger who doesn't want to spend money with their retail tenants: I think you should celebrate (rather than mock) this modest gesture to the needs of the less affluent.

Railway Garden Competition - Altrincham

This from The Clitheroe Kid...

 

Plenty of horticultural interest for waiting Metrolink passengers at Altrincham.

New DfT Special Advisers appointed

According to @JimBethal of Westbourne the new DfT SpAds are:

Julian Glover (who) has been released from Downing Street where he was crafting speeches for the Prime Minister. A former Guardian journalist, he is an enthusiast for HS2 (he weekends in Derbyshire near GO and PMcL). 

Ben Mascall (who) has become one of the Coalition’s most trusted press operators. He worked previously at heavy-weight brands like Coca-Cola and Tesco, and high-profile politicos like Gove and Bozza.

On the plus side they can't be any worse than the last lot. 

UPDATE: This from Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road...

Once upon a time Special Advisers were there to guard a minister's back against the devious civil servants who can obviously run rings round here today/gone tomorrow politicians on the detail of their Departments.  

In this they are, or should be, a sub-set of Policy Wonks. By and large the SpAds at DfT have been singularly useless in this role. 

Andrew Adonis was of course a hybrid - half minister/half wonk, a rare combination feared by Permanent Secretaries who can generally see off wonks.  An exception was the wonkocracy which emerged under the Blair Government - the wonk-driven demise of Railtrack is the classic example.    

These latest guys sound more like Political Advisers than Policy Wonks or SpAds.  

Political Advicors (PADs?) are concerned not with the practicality of policy but with how it will be presented and perceived. So expect more nonsensical written answers.

Old railway hands who remember Permanent Secretary Philip Rutnam in his youthful Treasury days expect him to eat these new SpAds for breakfast.