Desperate times: Man inserts ticket

This from Herr Bend o'Ver...

Is this the most desperate press release of the week?

According to FGW...

Newbury MP Richard Benyon will officially open Newbury Station’s ticket gates this Friday following £850,000 investment to improve the station environment...

The MP will tour the station, accompanied by First Great Western Managing Director Mark Hopwood, before opening the new gateline. 

'Benyon inserts valid ticket' - Hold the Front Page!

UPDATE: This from the Major...

I'm pleased to see that Richard Benyon is to officially open the ticket barriers at Newbury. 

If he could leave them open that would be most useful for all those passengers carrying bags, clutching cups of coffee, pushing prams, nursing arms in slings and everyone else for whom barriers are just that.

Pointless signs - Huddersfield

With apologies to all fans of Marcia...

Sadly, Eye fears that one day something similar may appear at Flinstock.

UPDATE: This from the Ghost of Sir Peter Parker...

The one-up-one-down halt on the Cotswold Line is Finstock, of course, not Flinstock.

Cameron's nearest station is actually here in Charlbury, but as it's a rare Lib Dem redoubt in West Oxfordshire, any statue here would be rapidly tarred and feathered by local militant Bromptoneers. 

But they have given me a memorial garden, for which I'm very grateful. It's even tended by a baronet and former paramour of Princess Margaret.

Possibly the best railway pub... in the world!

The Fact Compiler is in awe!

Go to the Alex', now!

UPDATE: This from Billy Arrows...

Mark Williamson's looking well but has Lord Adonis had a Chimay Blue too many? 

Hard Times - No 94

Good to see the train leasing market acting as a barometer for industry confidence.

So Eye wonders if readers can guess which ROSCO commercial director at yesterday's RfG Christmas Lunch didn't even bother bringing any business cards?

Hard times indeed.