This, perhaps surprisingly, from I.K.Brunel...
When departing my fine terminus on the hottest day of the
year, in the mid afternoon sun, I noted that the station management seem
to be unable to turn the platform lights off!
Is this worthy of Eye's attention?
Yes indeed Mr Brunel!
Time for an exciting new Eye feature...
Eye gives you Wattage Watch!
Piccies please of the railway unnecessarily running up utility bills.
Dear Odgers
Thank you for all your calls today asking us to help Network Rail find a successor to Graham Eccles.
Yes, he or she should be an 'operator'.
And no, recent experience in a front line operating role is not essential but is certainly desirable.
However, we wonder why NR has asked you to call us?
As they work alongside us and know us all much, much better than you do, surely NR's own people could have made exactly the same calls for a fraction of the cost?
Still in the Age of Austerity every penny counts.
Love, The Railway.
Telegrammed by Ithuriel
Here is a table from the interim submission of Sir Roy McNulty's Rail Value for Money study.
Older readers who passed the 11 Plus and younger readers with an A* in Advanced Maths may care to check the right hand column.
Eye wonders whether it is safe to trust Sir Roy and his team with the industry's finances?
UPDATE: This from Martin...
It's more serious than you realise...
Never mind the fact that the percentages don't add up to 100 (which could be explained by a further, hidden category).
I'm more interested in the way that if you use the net cost of each category together with it's percentage to calculate the overall total, each category suggests wildly different figures...
UPDATE: This from The Economist...
It's not clear what the final column actually refers to.
I think it is saying that long distance franchises cover 75% of their costs and government covers the remaining 25% while for regional franchises they only cover 39% of their costs. - hence the col should not add up to 100%
It is certainly not the proportion of Govt spending that goes to each of the three groups.
UPDATE: This from The Archer...
What’s more worrying than the 105% total is that none of the figures in the final column bear any relation to the supposedly related figures in the £m column.
The 61% should for example read 56% so the ‘inescapable conclusion’ in paragraph 6.3.3 is not correct, although what the actual conclusion should be escapes me.
Good news indeed from Moley.
Chris Mole (Parliamentary Under-Secretary):
The North West has benefited considerably from the £8.9 million upgrade of the west coast main line.
Perhaps Lord Adonis and Iain Coucher could give their office sofas a quick rattle?
It looks like there's about £8.991bn in loose change down there somewhere...
Good to see that the dead-tree media have finally caught up.
There is predictable press fury today over the decision by National Express to levy a £2.50 charge on standard class reservations.
Shame the story is being slightly occluded by the scandal of our troughing MPs - who of course won't have to pay the charge as they travel first class.
As predicted by the Eye way back on the 6th January National Express is to start charging for reservations.
From 17th May both National Express East Coast and National Express East Anglia will introduce a £2.50 fee for certain seat reservations.
The Eye understands that the reservation charge will only apply to standard class tickets where reservations are not already required.
So if you want to secure a seat - you pay.
At the moment it looks like season ticket holders can continue to book rezzies with impunity.
Status pass holders - no chance!
UPDATE: This from an 'Anonymous' reader...
One piece of good news.
NatEx have finally given in to customer demand and started accepting American Express Cards as a means of payment.
As AmEx charge a higher amount to the retailer perhaps passengers can vote with their credit cards when paying this additional travel tax?
That'll do nicely!
Posts
