Two groups battle to recreate LNER P2

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Exciting news from the kettle fraternity!

You wait for ages and then two come long at once - rival schemes are apparently competing to build a replica of the lost LNER P2 Class loco "Cock O The North".

In the Darlington corner is the A1 Steam Trust, successful builders of the £2.8 million Tornado replica that has recently returned to service after a boiler embarrassment.

Meanwhile, batting for Doncaster is the new P2 Trust, who hope to raise an eye-watering £10 million to make their retro steam dream come true.

Eye wonders if there is a danger that too many cocks may spoil the broth?

UPDATE: This from Chief Superintendent Rand (retired - thank God)...

The story about the two Cocks of the North reminds me of my early days as a constable in the dear old City of Bradford Police.

Police officers then as now wore numbers on their shoulders and that number was also used in correspondence and when identifying oneself in court. Thus, I was PC 45 Rand.

When a lad named Cox joined the force some wag in the Chief Constable's Office allocated him the number 2...

Securing the line - DRS and policing the railway

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The legendary impartial TV reporting of Sky News will be under detailed scrutiny by Direct Rail Services at their Carlisle HQ this week, after some rail-related unpleasantness in Germany.

Sky says (without attribution) that 17,000 Polizie are deployed against 250 Greenpeace protestors blocking a train of reprocessed nuclear waste in transit to a deep level waste storage depot in Northern Germany.

DRS will be watching events closely because although they were set up by BNFL when the late Max Joule got hacked off with Railfreight Distribution and later EWS and decided to have his own train set, they are now a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, sharing with Barbie Rail the distinction of being a nationalised train operator.

NDA is responsible for the demolition of our nuclear legacy of Magnox Power Stations, and identifying deep level sites to store the glowing waste – a £12 billion project, for which public consultation ends on 24 November.

NDA have said that rail will be preferred over road as a matter of policy and so all the rail haulage work is heading DRS’s way.It is, after all, what they do, and they have been meticulously developing their loco fleet in anticipation, including 24 of the latest low-emission Class 66s.

But security for the lucrative traffic may be a headache.

The timings and routing of DRS nuclear trains are not published – thanks to Section 79 of the Anti Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 - but somehow Greenpeace finds them.

British Transport Police can field 2,837 bobbies, although not all at once or in the same place.

The Polonium Plod can provide another 1000 officers.

If Sky’s numbers are right (a very big IF) and if Greenpeace UK are as effective as their German colleagues (rather less of an IF), the decommissioning project is short of policing resources – by 13,000 bodies.

Fortunately £12 billion should neatly mop up all the redundant county force coppers who fall victim to the Spending review, creating the Best Little Police Force money can buy.

Railway Air Service Resurgent

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British Transport Police is taking control of 23 helicopters (plus three spares) to provide a new National Police Air Service.

This replaces the 33 machines presently owned by individual county forces and the Met.

Civil police wanting to deploy a helicopter will now have to ask nicely, instead of just splashing out £2000 an hour whenever they fancy.

G-NTWK, Network Rail's own very lovely Eurocopter AS355 is not included in the scheme, despite bearing a very Police like black and yellow livery.

The move puts an extra £51 million into the BTP annual budget – not to be sniffed at – but one hopes that BTP Public Affairs will be ready to assume ownership of the ever-rising number of complaints about helicopter noise, many of which are generated by police air operations. Between them, Plod and the air ambulance account for 60% of London helicopter traffic.

Previous BTP adventures in the air have not gone smoothly - a 2008 flirtation with miniature drone helicopters that "squirted" offenders with smart water was outlawed by the Civil Aviation Authority.

The chopper fleet gives the only national civil police force an interesting new line in Big Toys, sorry, an enhanced logistical capability.


Perhaps compensating for the loss of the erstwhile and much loved Cross Country Plod-Duff.

UPDATE: This from a Mr McAree...

Eye says: "The chopper fleet gives the only national civil police force an interesting new line in Big Toys, sorry, an enhanced logistical capability."

Sorry to be pedantic but there is another national civil police force out there. The Civil Nuclear Constabulary.

UPDATE: This from Our International Correspondent...

Civil Nuclear Constabulary – the Polonium Plod - may be every conspiracy theorist’s favourite spooky arm of the state, and there are 1000 of them costing £56 million a year, but even they do not claim, anywhere, to be a national civil force.

UPDATE: From a Mr Philip Sutton (former proprietor of Rail Express)

Forget the Cross Country 'Duff'...

Don't you remember this gem?



Good luck to my old press mates on Railway Magazine.

CSR - reading between the lines

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So that was interesting!

£6 billion for “capital maintenance” of LUL?

Capital Maintenance is a very specific term – it means spending to maintain the value of the asset at a steady state. This just means keeping LUL as it is – doing proper running repairs to prevent decay. It isn’t investment in enhancements. It is rather less than Baroness Vadera promised over the first 7 years of the Metrodebt and Tubelines fiasco, and hopefully more deliverable.

On London’s cross-city white-elephant, it is odd that there is no actual number attached to the Treasury's commitment to Crossrail, given that bits of it are already being built.

The Crossrail website, in its helpful FAQ section says DaFT will be paying £5 billion, which seems clear enough. The less helpful press statement about driving down costs, dated 27 September
does not give a revised headline number, and merely says £30 million has been taken out of the cost of the new station at Whitechapel.

So more details please.

Perhaps the most illuminating line in the CSR Spending Review document is: "investment to improve journey reliability on Great Western Main Line services to Wales".

If you type this into the Babelfish translation engine and select 'Weasel to English' it says “Electrification not required, refresh HSTs”

UPDATE: This from @AdamBienkov, via Twitter...

Boris says that Crossrail will be delayed a further year #csr

Virgin fails to win extension

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What a difference a day makes if you are Virgin Rail.

Last night the self-styled Big Red was lauded, somewhat improbably by the RSPCA, for the excellence of its animal breakfasts, which at least makes a change from the more self-serving of the industry award schemes.

Unfortunately every dog has its day and this morning the Saviour of the Jammy Dodger kicked Beardie Rail out of the franchise extension balloon.

This from the Pink 'Un:

"We won’t be accepting Virgin’s proposal for an extension. We think it’s important to open franchises to competition and we’re likely to get better value for taxpayers and the government,” said Transport Minister Theresa Villiers.

Whilst DafT plans to refranchise the West Coast route just before the Olympics (Doh!) there is still radio silence on when its own toy trainset - the failing Barbie Rail - will be returned to the market.

With the nationalised East Coast operator languishing at the bottom of the performance tables Eye would have thought that resolving this particular ownership issue was slightly more pressing.

Then again - perhaps not.

With Virgin West Coast bleeding time and effort to retain the franchise there will be an inevitable impact on the TOC's performance. Happily for Marsham Street this should make East Coast's dire efforts look almost credible.

Meanwhile, there is at least one piece of genuine good news.

With both AngloScottish routes turned into basket cases the clamour for an early start to HS2 will become deafening.

UKPG offers insiders guide to transport

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The UK Press Gazette is the monthly trade journal of choice for phone hackers, paparazzi and those who spend a lot of time badgering the BA press office for free tickets.

Its most recent edition furnishes readers with an eight page Insider’s Briefing to transport and how to cover it.

There-in the alumni of great communicators are all arrayed; including BBC transport men Tom Edwards (London) and Paul Clifton (South and from time to time Rail Professional), Julian Rush, who dabbles in transport for Channel 4, and John Ingham who covers the beat for the Daily Express and has done so for many years.

Interesting omissions include Robert Wright of the pink 'un and Philip Pank of The Thunderer. Perhaps, lurking behind paywalls, they are a bit harder to get hold of.

Part of the briefing lists Key Publications – recommended serious reading for those writing of wheel on rail.

Featured are Transport Times, Local Transport Today, and surprisingly, plucky little Railway Magazine. The listing helpfully gives editors email and phone numbers so they can be contacted for a swift vox pop should incident or other service perturbation occur.

Surprisingly neither RAIL nor Modern Railways gets a mention.

Meanwhile Mystic Wolmar was asked by UKPG to explain the dearth of ladies covering transport. He limply explained that “trains, planes and cars are quite male subjects of interest”.

With such searing insights a golden future for Wolmar's mellifluous tones remains assured at the nation's breakfast tables.

RVAR regulations flouted - Shocker

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No doubt this will have the Disability Taliban frothing at the mouth.

Compliance with DDA has long since ceased to be optional for most operators, but luckily the requirement to paint doors a contrasting colour for the benefit of the visually impaired is not quite universal.

Obligingly the Grauniad has published a picture of a confused older chap failing to find the claret coloured door in his Mum's claret coloured train.

Eye salutes HRH the Prince of Wales for continuing to support the railways.

UPDATE: This from @daddydoink via Twitter...

@TheFactCompiler RVAR: Charles made the suggestion of wheelchair access loos on mk3s to Cyril Bleasdale's boss in 1979!

Maybe let him off?!

Publication praises Chairman - Shocker

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Railnews has kicked off its new on line supplement entitled Railnews Focus.

It contains a glowing account of the celebrations that Sir William McAlpine held to mark the 50 years he has lived in his agreeable stately pile at Fawley Hill, which also includes a one mile standard gauge railway.

Sir Bill is, of course, the Chairman of Railnews Limited. So good to see that the editorial team is already very clearly focused on meeting the needs of key stakeholders!

No matter.

The real meat is in the editorial, which does a manful and very moving job of analysing the Potter’s Bar Inquest proceedings – certainly good enough to cause consternation in the dead tree industry rags.

Focus is penned by Sim Harris, an ex-BBC man who keeps his ear very close to the ground.

Setting aside the curious launch timing – bang in the middle of the quietest week of the silly season when no-one of any consequence was at their desks, the new ePublication is a bid by Railnews for a new editorial beat.

Ever since it was conceived as the heir and successor to the old regional BR staff magazines it has stuck solidly to its blue collar audience. Now they are going after decision makers, a market targeted not wholly successfully by the erstwhile Rail Manager On Line.

But with only a small amount of lavish corporate advertising to go round in these straightened times, and great uncertainty about who our real decision makers actually are, it will be interesting to see if digital can trounce dead tree or if there will be tears before bedtime.

Meanwhile, Eye welcomes another member to the on-line Commentariat.

Underground runaway - some thoughts

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LUL’s little difficulty with a runaway engineer’s train is now subject to a RAIB investigation.

Without wishing to prejudge this, or indeed add to the media frenzy, the Eye would like to make mention of various people to whom the Underground and Londoners owe a debt of thanks.

So firstly a deep doff of the bowler to the Northern line controllers and signallers who responded so well to an unprecedented situation, cleared the line and by so doing prevented an incident of far greater magnitude taking place.

Eye offers another doff of the bowler to the Northern line motormen and women (Train Operators) who, when faced with a whole set of new instructions over the radio, put their faith in what they were being told by Control and got on and did it.

The Northern line is led by General Manager Jeff Ellis.

Jeff is a heavyweight railway operator, who cut his teeth as railway incident officer for the Moorgate accident. Although one of a dying breed in an increasingly politicised TfL, Jeff will have inclulcated in his team a professional approach to railway operations.

These tried and tested skills served Londoners well on Friday.

Meanwhile, with the ever present threat of cuts hanging over public sector LU perhaps Jeff could help top up the Northern line's coffers.

Eye suggests he hires out his railway controllers to Eurotunnel - who proved not nearly so adept at handling the unexpected in real time last Christmas...

UPDATE: This from Lock and Load...

Just thought you might want to know that Jeff has been looking after projects at LUL for a couple of months now and that the Northern's GM is Pat Hansbury.

Regardless, what a fantastic demonstration of professional operating though.

Balfour Beatty and the sin of omission

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Balfour Beatty has just released its half year accounts for 2010.

Lots of profits, and rightly the report celebrates BBs successes - and is frank about problems, such as Barking Power Station revenue being a bit, er, pants.

BB is one the few remaining UK business good news stories, a company from over here that is doing rather well over there, especially since it bought Parsons Brinkerhof and with it a footprint in US High Speed Rail.

The report liberally name-checks clients and projects as diverse as Coventry Street Lighting (a PPP), Singapore and Denver Mass Transit systems, Southampton City Council, Heathrow Terminal 2, Birmingham Hospital (another PPP) and the western extension of Hong Kong metro.

But not a word about about the company's current work for London Underground subsidiary Metronet as well as that for the national infrastructure owner Network Rail

Why so coy?

Or is involvement in the UK rail industry now viewed as the kiss-of-death for Blue Chips?

West Coast Woe - Three degrees of separation

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MVA – a UK based consultancy jointly owned by RATP and SNCF – recently completed a report for NR and ORR into West Coast performance.

Regular followers of the ongoing West Coast Main Line saga will recollect that following the introduction of the Very High Frequency service in 2009 performance has been, ahem, disappointing (76.4% "on time" in Q4 2008/9 with 559 complaints per 100,000 journeys - a record even for Beardie Rail).

Authored by the eminently respectable William Barter (who knows train planning inside out) the MVA report said, in language carefully designed not to offend the notoriously moody client, that WCML went to ratshit because no-one knew how to model a timetable that worked.

But, MVA’s own understanding of the West Coast may not be quite as robust as they would like us to think.

On their website the “How to find us” map for their Birmingham office helpfully shows that useful and heavily-used direct rail link between New Street and Moor Street.


Of course anyone wanting to know what Birmingham’s rail network really looks like should refer to Stuart Baker’s excellent Rail Atlas which is now in its 12th edition.

That would be the very same Baker who is the DfT's rolling stock and timetabling supremo and who, in a previous life, decided that diesel Voyagers should run under the West Coast wires.

Trebles and no IEPs all round.

Rail Professional - making MPs accessible

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Voters of Lincoln keen to talk to their new MP can now reach him night or day courtesy of Rail Professional magazine!

The very latest edition boasts a startlingly benign hagiography of Elaine Holt (44, married, one cat, a rabbit and 'model looks' we learn, helpfully) by Alan Salter (who he? – Ed).

To support the puff piece the mag's cover has a splendidly posed photo of the Directly Operated Railways supremo, smiling coquettishly into the lens through tumbling tresses, with her desk carefully decorated with appropriate 'props'.


And what carefully chosen props they are – a mug with “I love chocolate” patterns on it provides the necessary feminine touch and by way of counterpoint, a strategically placed document about the new ECML catering arrangements reminds us that the abolition of almost all traditional dining has been successful in reducing On Board Service costs.

So far so good.

However, Rail Amateur readers cannot live by bread alone – there must be circuses too.

Clearly changes to the SLC2 timetable are much occupying Elaine's mind at the moment and so, of course, there is a file upon her desk entitled 'Lincoln MPs'.

Close study reveals it to contain the profile of one Karl McCartney, Lincoln's newly elected Tory MP.

It tells us that “Lincoln Station is in his constituency and he has campaigned for the introduction of East Coast Lincoln services”.

But photo sessions with the great and good can be chaotic affairs and in the rush to get the lights working and for the subject to refresh lippie and eyeliner, there is always the risk that something will be missed.

And so it came to pass.

Added to McCartney's profile, in an unknown hand, is the MP’s mobile number.


Anyone wishing to discuss with Karl the one up and one down direct train that constitutes the tattered remains of the promise to give Lincoln a direct service now know where to reach him.

Just say Rail Professional gave you the number...

Blowing the whistle again...

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Much excitement in yesterday's Mail on Sunday that the man overseeing MP's expenses is to leave the role early.

A shattered Mr Gooding told The Mail on Sunday yesterday: ‘I have left the job for the sake of my health and sanity.’

Of course Nigel Gooding may be better known to Eye readers as the former Station Manager at Brighton, and the man who in the very early privatisation efforts blew his referees whistle at the then LTS management buy-out team for a very liberal interpretation of trading rules regarding season tickets and settlement for the Underground portion.

OPRAF (remember them?) said it was a serious breach whilst In the Commons Clare Short MP suggested that it was a deliberately organised fraud.

Not of course an accusation that could be levelled at Ms Short who the Telegraph revealed had "claimed the full cost of her mortgage for two and a half years, despite being entitled to charge only for the interest element."

Happily Clare has left the Mother of Parliaments.

Dr Mike named as Civil Service top earner

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The coalition, bless it, has published a list of the highest paid civil servants in the UK.

And Lo! it does say:

Dr Mike Mitchell - Head of National Networks - DfT - £200,000 - £204,999

Mere baubles against Sir Moir's £609,000 last year, but more than enough for a few meals in East Coast dining cars (if there are still any running).

And a full £40k more than DafT's Permanent Secretary trousered!

Clearly Dr Death's salary has also kept pace with inflation - why less than five years ago the Daily Telegraph said he earned a mere £150k a year.

No matter.

Eye salutes a wise and well respected figure, who leads the industry from the front with great pots of cash (shurely 'great charisma'? Ed).

Steam Dreams spins a rescue story...

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Publicity hungry railtour operator Steam Dreams got itself into The Thunderer this morning, with this offer of help to air travellers becalmed by Icelandic volcanic ash:

Additional capacity was made available on alternative transport from Scotland to London, including an extra 7,000 seats on Virgin Trains. The tourist firm Steam Dreams, which runs steam train trips for enthusiasts between Edinburgh and London, also offered an extra 50 seats to passengers who were unable to fly this morning.

Steam Dreams Chairman Marcus Robertson is himself no slouch as a spin doctor and has a reputation for attending the opening of an envelope.

But a big bowler raspberry to Times hackette Joanna Sugden for not enquiring more deeply into what Marcus was peddling her.

The Steam Dreams train, 1Z31, was booked to leave Edinburgh at 09.34, and after two lengthy water stops and a change of kettles in York, arrives at Kings Cross at a convenient 20.00 tonight.

A lugubrious 10 hrs 26 mins for 394 miles, an average speed somewhere south of 40 mph - pretty much in line with Eurostar's special Christmas timings and rather worse than the booked time in 1938 of 7hrs 20 mins offered by the pre-war LNER. Even a National Express coach promises to do the trip in 10hrs 5 mins.

The 1955 Modernisation Plan? What's that, then?

UPDATE: This from Gresley the Younger...

Love the comment on the SD story about ash clouds, was on R5 Live too!

But factually incorrect, the 1938 timing for Edinburgh to London steam hauled was 6 hours.

Of course, that was at 90mph without all these electric new fangled thingys to get in your way, hence the ten hours schedule today, and no water troughs as the track-circuits don't like them!

Fastest in preservation was eight hours (April 2009) but that was Clarkson powered, snigger!

NatEx continues to exorcise Bowker legacy

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So National Express Group are not renewing their sponsorship deal with the Football Association.

Of course the deal was originally done by Blackburn Rovers fan Richard Bowker, before his departure to head up Union Railways in the United Arab Emirates.

This from the Grauniad...

The Football Association is facing a new financial headache after it emerged that the transport giant National Express would not be renewing its multimillion-pound sponsorship deal.

Of course this news is probably of limited interest to Eye readers.


But what a marvelous opportunity to publish a picture containing two things that have vanished forever from the East Coast Main Line.

The Scottish Curse - Adonis beware!

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A little light relief, after today's IEP excitement...

State-owned national icon No 4472 - Flying Scotsman - continues to cause heartache as engineering problems worsen.

This from the Northern Echo...

'Chris Beet, engineering and rail operations manager, said:

“Essentially, it’s a very big job and very time consuming....

"It should have been scrapped 46 years ago by British Railways”.'

Ain't that the truth!

As avowed by the bank managers of Messrs Alan Pegler, Sir William McAlpine BART, Pete Waterman, Dr Tony Marchington, the creditors of Flying Scotsman plc... (cont P94).

Euroscuffle - Fiennes would have spoken to 'the brains'!

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The list of interviewees grilled by Messrs Garnett and Gressier is an impressive Who’s Who of senior cross-channel suits.

Director of This, Head of That, CEO of The Other, not to mention a couple of household name woodentops.

The Independent Review had some very good access to some very literate people; all of whom, no doubt, had an interesting chat with their corporate legal teams before facing the panel.

What might leave some of the Grumpy Old Railway Operating Managers (who have experience of chairing such incident enquiries), a tad discombobulated is the apparent lack of interface with any front line operating staff.

Which left the resulting report denuded of first-hand evidence from anyone who was actually on duty that night (whether from the two operators at either end of the Chunnel, or from the tunnel operator itself).

A conversation with the Eurotunnel chief controller, who had a succession of failures unfold under him, about the spirit and actualitee of how he, Eurostar and SNCF actually worked together, is reduced to a recommendation about upgrading the existing telephone link to a video facility and some training courses.

As a consequence the rest of the non-engineering parts of the review end up being concerned with the provision and distribution of emergency pastries (shurely croissant? Ed).

For instance it fails to mention that the relationship between the tunnel operator, the infrastructure controllers either side, and the passenger train operator, is just pants. As evidenced by Eurotunnel’s unprecedented 'Not Us Guv' press release on the 19th December.

Further proof, were it needed, that the current operational framewok is an artificial construct – a set of flaky interfaces imposed by bankers with their main eye on collecting every penny from a projected 16 million Eurostar passengers, made even worse by the intrusions of HM Customs.

It is the most over-complicated interface between any two railways in Europe, and perhaps the world.

And things won't get any better until it is simplified.

Judging by this report we won't hold our breath waiting...

Mike Carroll - Like a candle in the wind!

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Good news from Rail Professional!

Apparently the Meningitis Trust has appointed Mike Carroll, late of First Great Western, as its new Chairman.

Good news indeed and congratulations all round.

Although Rail Amateur is perhaps a little harsh on Carroll who, according to the mag, "had an extinguished career within the rail industry".

Er, quite so.

DB tank directed onto ATOC lawn

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In summer ATOC announced that the entire National Rail Enquiries call-centre operation would be outsourced, at a cost of nearly 200 British jobs, to Bombay.

But now the trade association for Train Operating Companies has been outflanked by one of its own members. `

Plucky little Chiltern Railway, owned by Deutsche Bahn (one of the worlds largest rail and logistics operators) has dumped The Trainline as their on-line retailer in favour of an undisclosed supplier which also provides a UK based call centre.

The new arrangement will come into force from 1st February 2010, according to a confidential staff briefing issued yesterday.

Under the leadership of Adrian 'Hoppy' Shooter, now happily recovered from his recent knee operation, Chiltern has gained a reputation as a bit of a pathfinder TOC - witness the successful delivery of multiple Evergreen projects compared to the WCML upgrade fiasco.

Chiltern decided on the move due to customer complaints about Trainline failings, not least the Indian call centre's preference for selling Beardie Rail inclusive tickets from Brum and Kidderminster to London, rather than cheaper Chiltern only routings.

Since Chiltern is the model for longer franchises, Exponent Private Equity (who paid an eyewatering £163 million to Natex, Virgin and Stagecoach for the Trainline in 2006) must be feeling a tad nervous.

But not half as nervous as ATOC, whose former Chairman, Adrian Shooter, acts as an unpaid 'informal advisor' to the shadow Tory transport team.