This from Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road...
It is of course quite understandable that the ORR's new publication 'GB rail industry financial information 2010-11' doesn't provide figures for individual TOCs on grounds of commercial sensitivity.
However...
Photoshopping out the painted numbers of the DMU on the publication's cover is perhaps going a little bit far?
This from Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road...
Additional portable loos and catering supplies are being rushed to Marsham Street to accommodate this sudden influx of hostages to fortune.
Theresa Villiers (Minister of State (Rail and Aviation), Transport; Chipping Barnet, Conservative):
Planned and actual delivery dates for departmental commitments are published in the DFT Strategic Business Plan, available on the Department's website and updated monthly.
The Department expects to publish shortly a Command Paper on Rail, which will include proposals on the structure of Network Rail.
The Department and Office of Rail Regulation are currently consulting jointly on the role of the regulator, and the consultation is due to close on 2 March 2012.
The High Level Output Specification is due to be published by July 2012, and delivery remains on track.
The new Intercity West Coast franchise is due to be awarded in the summer, and to commence in December 2012.
The Department is planning to reach financial close for both IEP and Thameslink in the spring of this year.
Cruella must be hoping that the mini-reshuffle, expected if the Energy Secretary is summoned by the CPS, happens soon...
Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road...
How ironic that the 10th anniversary of one ill thought-out act of Government aggression should overshadow another.
Ten years ago today the government pressured Railtrack into assisted suicide.
Lest we forget, here are some of the players as Whitehall farce turned to Jacobean revenge tragedy:
Stephen Byers, John Robinson, Shriti Vadera, Steve Marshall, Sir Alastair Morton, Dan Corry, Andrew Adonis, David Rowlands, Sir Richard Mottram and not forgetting the cameo appearance in the final scene Tom Winsor.
What a stellar cast! And how mundane today's railway seems without them.
UPDATE: This from Banker76...
Absolutely spot on!
Today’s railway is mundane by comparison. No Southall. No Ladbroke Grove. No Hatfield. No bu88ering up the WCML modernisation (and Leeds station rebuilding).
How tame it all is...
UPDATE: This from Theydon Bois...
Here in Edinburgh we continue to bu88er up an otherwise perfectly good tram scheme to an extent rarely seen before in project management (excluding the the building of the Scottish Parliament, obviously).
Okay - it's not really Railtrack or the railway's fault, but still pretty impressive.
Oh, yes, and while I'm at it, I was very disappointed at the closure of the 'Who should chair NR?' vote.
I only got 'round to voting three times when it suddenly ended, leaving me with no social life at all.
Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
Tally Ho!
The Silver Fox has broken cover, with quotes on vertical integration post McNulty, in today's Pink 'un.
But given that our Graham is now a Network Rail non-exec his utterances must have greater significance than just another old-railway man venting his atavistic two penn'orth worth on John Major's fragmentation of his railway..
Could this be the early stages of an old-railway putsch, with Mr Eccles emphasising the importance of having a single guiding mind for the Network in future? Who could this guiding mind be?
We'd vote for the Silver Fox like a shot, but we suspect he could be acting as Richelieu to Robin Gisby's Louis XIII .
Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
Clearly the esteemed Transport Correspondent of the Financial Times has failed to pass on the Transport Style Sheet to his News Desk colleagues before going on Christmas leave.
The paper's report today on the extension to the c2c franchise fails to refer once to the franchise as 'lucrative'.
Does this solecism hint at slipping standards at the Pink 'un?
Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
Britain's self styled greatest living transport expert, quoting from the Grauniad's Peter Preston, says in his latest blogpost:
Peter Preston, a normally utterly impenetrable Guardian columnist, for once makes a good point in today's paper. Writing about the £8bn worth of rolling stock investment promised by the government last week - forget whether the actual figures add up - he asked the DfT how many of the new 2,100 carriages would be first or second class.
Those who can divide £8billion by 2,100 will know that the numbers definitely don't add up.
Perhaps the prolific Wolmar, surely the O.S. Nock de nos jours, should have consulted the soi disant 'veteran observer' whose expertise is currently being 'rested' by the FT?
UPDATE: This from a Mr Robert Wright...
I was intrigued by the idea of Wolmar as an 'OS Nock de nos jours' and checked the great man's Wikipedia entry for parallels.
Sadly, it summarises his career thus:
"Nock authored more than 140 books and 1000 magazine articles, which are often considered to be less than authoritative because of his voluminous output. He tended to re-use data, text and anecdotes in different books, including paragraphs culled in their entirety."
Perhaps Wolmar should get himself a canal boat and make a pitch to be the modern era's LTC Rolt instead.
Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
Has there been a falling out between the FT Transport Correspondent and his ever constant 'veteran railway observer' Rupert Brennan-Brown?
In his item on the refusal of Theresa Villiers to say anything about plans for Thameslink Robert is forced to rely upon the thoughts of a mere 'railway person'.
Looks like the FT has finally joined the legions amongst whom 'Rent-a-quote BB' has little allure.
No matter.
Eye suspects the real reason for Theresa's silence is that her officials have yet to tell her what they've decided.
UPDATE: This from a Mr Robert Wright, for it is he...
Dear Mr Compiler (if you don't mind the formality),
There hasn't been any falling out with Mr Brennan Brown at all.
We here at the FT have a strong stomach for his eccentric views about politics and the railway industry, amusingly tinged as they are with a boyish sense of mischief.
However, part of our authority as a newspaper depends on our wide range of sources and we occasionally go for a while without quoting some of them.
I'm sure he'll be back, even more veteran than before.
Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
This from the Sunday Express...
The other schemes being examined ahead of this week’s crunch decision include the electrification of several lines and a £7.5 billion order for Intercity Express trains under the Intercity Express Programme (IEP). Provisional bidder for the order is Agility Trains, a consortium led by Japan’s Hitachi.
IEP, potentially the most significant rolling stock investment programme in the UK for more than 30 years, will provide a new generation of trains to serve Britain’s long-distance routes.
The provisional requirement is for between 500 and 2,000 vehicles for the East Coast Main Line.
The Agility consortium is under pressure to cut the costs of its bid, with ministers using the threat of alternative options to extract a better deal. The alternatives include “re-engineering” the existing Intercity 125 trains or buying cheaper electric trains.
2,000 vehicles for the ECML?
Not so much Rail Barbie as Hail Barbie if she can pull this off!
Meanwhile the DfT spin meisters are still peddling the line that buying the wrong train for the wrong services at the wrong time is a shrewd move if it is cheap enough.
This from Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
According to Financial Times Political Correspondent, Jim Pickard, the DfT is using the threat of Sir Andrew Foster's credible alternatives to extract a better deal from Agility Trains.
So let's get this straight.
DfT thinks that saving money on a train that no-one in the railway industry wants is a better deal?
Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
Browsing through the uncorrected note of Philip Hammod's evidence to the Transport Select Committee we came across this exchange:
Q18 Kwasi Kwarteng: My question is related to rail and the position of Railtrack. Clearly, you have been on record saying certain things about the governance there and there is a perception that that is quite poor because it is neither one thing nor the other. It is a private concern and then I suspect because the government did not want the liability to be on the balance sheet it is neither fish nor fowl. I was just wondering what your position on Railtrack was in terms of governance.
Mr Hammond: The Coalition came into office with a commitment to make Railtrack more accountable to its immediate customers and to its ultimate customers, rail passengers
Only goes to show what a strong and enduring brand Railtrack built in its short but unhappy life.
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Finger out Adonis!
Only 19 days in which to place orders for the outstanding 757 additional vehicles in the High Level Output Specification.
Your elected colleagues with constituencies in and around Derby expect you to hand a cheque over to Colin Walton soonest.
UPDATE: This from Leo Pink...
And since the delay to the Thameslink new trains order has deferred 200 of the vehicles in the HLOS 1300 to Control Period 5, why not ask Uncle Colin to make up the number with some Turbostars and revive the Diesel Multiple Unit Project.
No doubt Porterbrook would like to further boost their local MP's chances by providing the funding for these DMUs.
Such gratitude would be in order since we all remember how the Derby MPs stood up for brave little Porterbrook as it defied the jack-booted hordes of DfT Rail. (Errr... is this right? Ed.)
Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
Noticeably missing from both the Labour and Conservative manifesti is any commitment to Th*m*sl*nk.
This project is, of course, fully funded in Control Period 4 which ends on 31 March 2014.
But with London Bridge remodelling and the new train fleet deliveries running through to the end of 2016 - two years into CP5 (the Control Period of Doom) - Thameslink appears at serious risk of truncation.
And that's before the great experiment of resignalling with ETCS plus an ATO overlay for 24 trains/hour.
With CP5 promising massive cut-backs in railway funding is this mass aversion to the 'T' word an augury?
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Here is Philip Johnston writing in today's Torygraph:
All the familiar ingredients are there: the waste of taxpayers' money on an ocean-going scale, incompetent management, political naivete, wildly over-optimistic promises, IT failures, the liberal use of outside consultants and the refusal of anyone in Whitehall to listen to the experts.
Eye was looking forward to some weapon's grade pyrotechnics once Captain Deltic found out that this Johnston-Come-Lately had wandered on to his patch!
Alas.
Mr Johnston was fulminating about proposals to set up a network of national fire control centres, which in 2004 this was due to cost £72m and be ready by 2008. Now the final bill looks closer to being £240m.
Wonder if he knows about the IEP yet?
This from our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Compare and contrast, as they say.
Northern and EMT get 16 vintage DMU vehicles between them and the Government pulls out the PR stops boosting this £17.8 million deal.
Potty old Passenger Focus hails 'new trains'.
Now consider this routine statement from Bombardier.
BERLIN, GERMANY--(Marketwire - March 24, 2010) - Bombardier Transportation received an order for 49 additional Regio2N regional double-deck trains, as an option from the "Regio2N" contract signed with SNCF on behalf of the French Regions, on 24 February 2010. This additional order for 49 trains, which will be financed by the Regions, amounts to approximately 350 million euros ($ 474 million US).
And while so called experts say that the French Regions have been starved to pay for TGV, these really are very nice trains.
And it's going to get worse...
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Here's the Note to Editors in the Network Rail press release on the visit by the PM and the Chancellor to the new Blackfriars station this morning.
Note to editors
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
According to a holding answer from Moley on 26 February 2010:
"The Department for Transport does not hold information on when and where railway track has been added to or taken away from the national network".
With an updated version of his invaluable Atlas about to be published, surely Stuart Baker could help out his minister?
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
At around 08.45 yesterday the National Rail website listed no fewer than six entries that said that due to poor weather conditions buses were replacing trains!
The routes were:
+ Horsham & Littlehampton
+ Littlehampton/Bognor Regis/Chichester & Havant
+ Ebbw Vale & Cardiff Central
+ Gatwick Airport & Horsham
+ Guildford & Effingham Junction (good job the sage has moved)
+ Tonbridge & Hastings
Clearly neither Network Coach nor the Bus Bandits now see rail as the primary all-weather mode of transport.
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Exciting news from the Chancellor's Pre Budget Report...
Introducing a green stimulus – ensuring part of the fiscal stimulus supports low-carbon growth and jobs by accelerating £535 million of capital spending on energy efficiency, rail transport, and adaptation measures. 76,000 low income households will benefit earlier from better heating and energy efficiency, up to 200 new rail carriages will be delivered earlier and 27,000 homes will benefit sooner from flood defences (cont. p94)
Earlier than what?
And could those 200 carriages refer to to the 202 DMU vehicles announced in similar terms in last year's Pre-Budget Report and subsequently abandoned.
We'd ask DfT if we thought the press office would understand the question.
We'd ask Stephen Hammond to raise it in Parliament, if we thought he would understand the question.
But as we suspect it's a cut and paste job from last year's Pre-Budget Report we'll do nothing but bury our head deep in our hands and weep.
After all does anyone believe a word that the 2009 Pre-Budget Report contains?
UPDATE: This, amazingly, from Hammond's 5th Surgeon...
Has 222 been on the Christmas gin?
The reason why the reference to 200 new vehicles looks like a cut'n'paste from the 2008 PBR is because it is from the 2008 PBR!
Not even this Chancellor would be craven enough to try and get away with the same nonsense twice... surely?
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Exciting news from Labour Party HQ in Victoria Street!
Eye understands that following the success of Transport secretary Lord Adonis' whirlwind one-day whistle stop tour of England's 10 worst stations in Labour constituencies, the party's Election 'Grid' now includes the following:
Andy Burnam, Secretary of State for Health to visit the top 10 hospitals in Labour constituencies with the worst post operation fatality rate (Mode: Air Ambulance).
Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families to visit the top 10 schools in Labour constituencies with the worst GCSE results (Mode: First Yellow school buses).
Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills, Minister of Information, Lord President of the Council (cont. p94) to visit the top 10 car factories in Labour constituencies making the most unreliable/any cars (Mode: Ministerial Jag)
With friends like these...
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Oak leaves have been added to Lord Adonis' Орден Ленина in recognition of another heroic act of railway statism that will get them dancing round their handbags in Essex.
Andy baby has stepped in where even uber-privatiser Richard Bowker feared to tread and announced that when c2c is refranchised in 2011 the line will be named Essex Thameside.
It would have been oak leaves with diamonds had he reverted to London Tilbury and Sarf'end - the railway that serves where it says on the tin.
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