East Coast resurrects fine dining

This from the late Sir Peter Parker...

I am delighted to hear that the state owned passenger train operator will be unveiling their plans for the next five years of the East Coast Main Line at a dinner  tonight.

I was even more pleased to be told that the venue for this exciting event is British Rail's old headquarters at 222 Marylebone Road.

Does this presage an announcement that the franchise will be renamed InterCity East Coast and that the 'Swallow' brand will be restored to all trains?

The Bilderberg Group meets at The Grove!

Good news for fans of secretive and exclusive societies!

According to the Daily Telegraph: 

The annual gathering of royalty, statesmen and business leaders, will this week take place at the Grove Hotel, a golf resort in Watford, Hertfordshire.

Older hands will of course remember that this venue was once BR's Management and Training Centre, where Organising for Quality courses were offered to all railway managers.

Perhaps there is a message in this for this for iDave and Gideot?

OfQ? Indeed.

Pointless signs - LUL Liverpool Street

NR goes back to the future at Quagmire opening

Is Network Rail now ready to embrace the railway's past?

This from The Quadrant's opening do.

Looks familiar?

Coincidence? 

Eye thinks not!

Network Rail Projects goes back to the future

Eye notices with interest that Network Rail is opening up to 'contestability'.

This from the FT:

Under the plans, Network Rail’s project planning unit will be turned into a separate business and forced to compete with outside bidders to design and manage engineering projects in the UK. It will also be encouraged to pitch for similar work outside Britain, possibly in fast-developing rail markets, such as the United Arab Emirates.

Interesting too that NR's Simon Kirby hopes that his Directorate will be able to offer NR's accumulated wisdom worldwide.

An idea that will resonate with those who recall the value of BR and LT's former international consultancy arms.

Death of BRB(R) somewhat premature?

This from The Shunter...

Quite ironic that the BRB(R) is being wound up, just as the McNulty review is likely to conclude that we need a small, non-governmental, body to lead the industry.

Something that can guide a devolved, regionally focused, Network Rail and at the same time develop a franchising policy that compliments the new one-size-doesn't-fit-all industry structure

Mystic Shunter predicts that in March we will see the announcement of this new body.

Called the 'Railway Executive' it will sound both modern and exciting, and for students of railway history strangely familiar...

Back to the future - NR adopts double arrow

It appears that Network Rail's Midlands Region can read the runes!


The arrows of indecision clearly looks a safer bet than doomed NR's back of a fag packet logo...

UPDATE: This from Our International Correspondent (and others)...

The Met Rly/GCR boundary sign at Mantles Wood is very smart, and even the proportions and perspective on the "BR" double arrow are right, so unlike Banbury and other piss poor examples see Eye Passim.

But why is this sign so nice, when usually for NR any old thing will do?

Because, to judge from the typeface and colours, it isn't an NR sign. It's a TfL production.

The opposing sign which would be the responsibility of NR - "You Are Now Leaving Coucherland - Use the SPT to ask a Grown Up before passing this point" - is probably not nearly as smart, if it exists at all.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
What a soft job speech writers have at the Department for Transport.

All they have to do is dig out an old speech and change a couple of initials around.

This top secret draft of Lord Adonis' talk to the Fourth Friday club has reached the Eye from an anonymous source:

"As an organisation, XX combines the classic shortcomings of the traditional nationalised industry.

"It is an entrenched monopoly. That means too little responsiveness to customers' needs, whether passenger or freight; no real competition; and too little diversity and innovation.

"Inevitably, it also has the culture of a nationalised industry: a heavily bureaucratic structure; an insufficiently sharp awareness on the part of employees that their success depends on satisfying the customer - indeed, on attracting more customers; and an instinctive tendency to ask for more taxpayers' subsidy and to feel that public subsidy will always be there as a crutch whenever things look difficult..."

Can Eye readers guess which of Lord Adonis' predecessors first uttered these words and when?

IEP in perspective

40 years ago this month...

Chief Engineer Terry Miller made the formal submission to the British Railways Board to develop the new 125 mile/h InterCity diesel train - offering a prototype with six coaches and two power cars ready to run 22 months after the funding was authorised.

And not a consultant in sight...

Tellyfest

Telegrammed by The Raver
Good TV programmes about railway history are rare, usually falling into whingeing nostalgia.

But on BBC4 last night, Ian Hislop hit just the right note, criticising Beeching and yet recognising that the railways in the 1960s had to be cut down.

Aside from allowing Wolmar to sport a ghastly pink jumper the producers are to be congratulated.

Perhaps Hislop would have made a better Secretary of State for Transport?

Crankfest

A feast of crankery on BBC4 tonight to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Beeching Report.

First off at 20:00 is a repeat (it is BBC4 after all) of an interview with the now dead Dr Beeching.

This is followed at 20:30 by what appears to be gratuitous propaganda for anti-rail group Sustrans.

Then at 21:00 vertically challenged Private Eye editor Ian Hislop ruminates about what might have been if all those loss making lines had remained open.

Timely TV with the ORR threatening swinging cuts to NR's budget.