Railway Carol Service - 21st December

It's that time of year again!

The annual Rail Staff Carol Service will be held at 12:30 on Thursday 21st December at St Mary's Somers Town near Euston Station.

All welcome.

Euston to host homeless on Christmas Day

This from Network Rail is great!

Thanks to a partnership between Streets Kitchen, St Mungo's and Network Rail, London Euston station will welcome 200 specially invited homeless guests on Christmas Day.

As colleagues enjoy time off with their families during the festive season, around 30 volunteers from Network Rail will give up their Christmas Day to work alongside volunteers from homelessness charity St Mungo’s and Streets Kitchen. St Mungo’s provides a bed and support to more than 2,700 people a night across England, and Streets Kitchen is a grassroots organisation which feeds 1,000 people on the streets every week.

The 200 guests, invited by St Mungo’s and Streets Kitchen, will be arriving at London Euston station from 1100 on Christmas Day, Monday 25 December. The station concourse will be filled with decorations and tables will be laid for dinner so that the guests can enjoy a full Christmas dinner and some company.

More here…

Good effort!

DfT outsources data collection to Labour

What are we to make of this response?

East Coast Rail Franchise

Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 5 December 2017 to Question 116801, how much Virgin Trains East Coast paid in premium payments (a) from the commencement of the franchise in 2015 to date and (b) will pay in each year until 2023-2024.

Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys): The current East Coast franchise operated by Virgin Trains East Coast commenced 1st March 2015. An announcement of the expected premium over the duration of the contract was made at franchise award. All premiums due to date under the contract have been paid. Payments by franchised operators are published by ORR annually and can be found on their website. We have set out our plans to end the operational divide between track and train, and from 2020 we are establishing the East Coast Partnership, one of the first of a new generation of integrated regional rail operations. This will be subject to a competitive process, and will include appropriate premiums paid from the private partner to the Government.

This is unhelpful to the point of wilfull obstruction.

DfT has a spreadsheet of premium payments year by year on its website so why not simply provide a link?

Perhaps because the subsidy spreadsheet on the DfT website stops at 2015-16. The next update (for 2016-17) was due in August 2017 but it ain't there.

No doubt the DfT is hoping McDonald can find the information on the ORR website and pass it on to New Minster House?