This from Ed Balls, via twitter...
Sorry... But this is getting really weird.. RT @felicitymorse: Ed Balls makes it onto a train sign twitter.com/FelicityMorse/…
— Ed Balls (@edballsmp) April 12, 2013
A fairly torrid week for Boris has been topped off today by the small print of the New Franchising Policy.
The long extension to SouthEastern won't just annoy long suffering Kentish commuters, it will also infuriate Transport for London!
As the franchise isn't due to be re-let until 2018 it looks like BoJo's ambitions to take on the 'inners', or metro services, before the next Mayorial election are doomed.
Of course Centro will be similarly disappointed that London Midland will be extended to 2017.
But Eye can't help but feel in Boris's case this is personal. Nice work Dave.
Good to see Her Majesty the Queen celebrating 150 years of London's Underground!
A busy day for TfL and those named Howard!
This from Crossrail...
Crossrail today announced the appointment of Howard Smith as Operations Director.
Howard Smith is currently Chief Operating Officer for Rail at
Transport for London and has successfully led the £1bn East London Line
extension project as well as the development, launch and operation of
London Overground and management of its operating concession.
Howard Smith will be responsible for leading the development of
Crossrail’s operational and customer service strategy, defining the
structure of the new railway’s operating and maintenance organisations
as well as leading on the arrangements for the future Crossrail
operating concession.
Note the magic word 'concession'.
What possible reason, apart from DLR and London Overground, could Crossrail have for preferring a concession over the hugely discredited and thinly capitalised franchising model? (shurely: "highly successful and investment rich franchising model"? Ed)
This from the Man by the Photocopier...
I note approvingly that Transport for London has
extended the LOROL contract to run Overground until late 2016.
According to TfL's annual report Mike Brown's salary was £310,734 last year.
This from http://jonhind.lightbox.com
Looks like London Overground have abandoned the timetable and decided just to tell us when they will give us a train.
This taken at West Hampstead:
No doubt getting rid of all that pesky timetable nonsense will stop passengers complaining about late trains?
UPDATE: This from a Mr JMG...
I think your comment on this is unfair.
Except for very late at night, London Overground is now a turn-up-and go railway and with all trains calling at all stations.
The conventional Network Rail display formats are too complicated and require unnecessary scrolling which means that key information is actually not displayed for much of the time - witness many platform screens taking three pages to show the details of the next train.
I do believe it is much more helpful for passengers to adopt the London Underground practice of showing destinations and minutes to arrival - mostly now for the next four trains - and I am pleased to see that LO (LooRoll, Ed) is progressively switching to this method.
Having said that, your photo clearly shows that there is more work to be done on the details.
This sign at West Hampstead - which looks as if it is located in the booking hall - clearly needs to be further reconfigured to show the two directions separately and to reduce the display from two pages to one so that the most important information (where is the next train going and how long to wait?) is in view all the time.
This from TfL...
Ian Brown, Managing Director, London Rail
Ian Brown, who has led London Rail with such great distinction over the last 10 years, has decided to retire from Transport for London.
In a career spanning over 40 years, Ian has made an outstanding contribution to public transport and the rail industry, and I know that he fully intends to remain active in the industry for many years to come.
In the meantime, I would like to acknowledge just some of the radical improvements delivered for passengers under Ian’s leadership:
This from Pastor Redwonn...
What a splendid opening last Tuesday of the new East London line.
But just how quickly did operator London Overground record its first SPAD on the new railway?
Five minutes?
Five hours?
Five days?
Perhaps we should be told?
This just in from The Sleeper...
It's not every day a new Overground line opens...
At 10:00 this Thursday the Mayor of London, BoJo the Great, will re-open the extended East London line and travel by special train from Dalston Junction to Shoreditch High Street.
As BoJo will be acompanied by the great and the good of the Metropolis, as well as myriad hacks, the occasion is expected to be marked in some style.
City Hall organisers are optimistic that this can be achieved by tying former mayor Ken Livingstone across the newly laid tracks.
UPDATE: This from a mildly annoyed Mizter T...
It would be rather churlish to tie ex-Mayor Ken to the tracks given that he is the reason the East London Line Extension project actually got off the ground in the first place, along with engineering the transfer of the lines that now make up TfL's London Overground from former operator Silverlink (aka Silverstink - at least when it came to their Metro operation).
One rather doubts Boris even knew where Dalston was until a couple of years ago - he certainly can't pronounce it right, calling it "Dahlston" when it is in fact "Dawlston".
Regardless, this ain't his doing by any measure!
Telegrammed by the Master
Boris launched the first of the London Overground class 378s at Willesden this morning.
Alas, the supporting press release contains a real howler.
It would appear that in TfL-world, adding a 4th car to the 3 car trains will add "50% extra capacity"!
Perhaps unsurprising, therefore, to hear that TfL are having real problems balancing this year's budget.
UPDATE: This, arithmetically, from a Beancounter (Ret'd)...
Obviously numbers are not The Master's strong point.
Old Trains carry 460 passengers (approx).
New Trains (3 car) carry 500 passengers +40 an 8% increase.
New Trains (4 car) carry 700 passengers + 240 on Old Trains - a 50%+ increase (on OLD trains).
With 175 in each car (mainly standing) let's hope the Air Con will be "up to the muster"!
Good to see that BBC Radio 4's World Tonight elected to interview Ken Livingstone on the National Express East Coast Story.
Out of thirsty Ken flowed the usual late night tosh about the evils of privatisation and the failings of Metronet - an infrastructure company.
Could that be the same Ken Livingstone who when Mayor decided to privatise the operations of the formerly publicly operated London Underground East London line?
Perhaps we should be told?
But not by the lame editors of the World Tonight.
This just in from our man at the back...
As this franchise lurches from one crisis to another, the RMT is calling for strike action at the ex Silverlink depots as the management finally get to grips with the various Spanish Practices that have been taking place.
However, now they have done that, the management have introduced some ridiculous payment structures to tempt traincrew into working overtime and rest days to keep them out of the do-do as they failed to recruit enough staff to service the new timetable.
Drivers now have a guaranteed minimum of 11hours payment for working a no duty day and guards have 10 hours. Both supposedly temporary arrangements but wait for the unions to call the 'custom and practice' argument to make it permanent.
In the meantime the station staff who aren't treated with the same kid gloves are left to get on with it, i.e. lump it.
Sundays remain voluntary for the time being.
UPDATE: An 'anonymous' reader mails the following implausible tale...
Rumours around Euston that Richard Branson has been offered a blank cheque if he takes over the Midland franchise.
But he wants a name change to Virgin Suburban, and wants to see the Overground banished from Euston.
I can't say if that's true, but it's hardly unexpected.
Though I'm not sure what TfL will make of Beardie's demands regarding the Overground.
Make of this what you will.
UPDATE: Sim Harris writes:
Interesting that the notion of no Overground at Euston has been revived, even in the context of Beardie taking over LM.
Actually, it was on the TfL "maybe" list as recently as late 2007.
The argument is that Overground (i.e. Watford DC) delivers people to a terminus where the Underground is already woefully overcrowded in the morning peak.
Serious consideration has been given to diverting the Watfords via Primrose Hill (Opportunity missed! Ed) and then taking them along the North London Railway to feed people down into the City - perhaps at Dalston Junction when the ELR is opened?
I don't believe the idea is dead, either.
The TranSys' summer BBQ was an unusually subdued affair last Wednesday (23rd July) .
In previous years the Smartcard PFI Contractor has been besieged by TfL staff begging to attend the annual shindig.
However, this year even those with much sought after tickets pleaded prior engagements of the 'underwater knitting' variety.
Regular visitors to Railway Eye may recollect that there have been a number of issues in recent weeks with Oyster card readers.
Surely TfL bosses weren't small minded enough to suggest that staff attending the do might find it "career limiting"?
PPPs are not exactly flavour of the month in London following the high profile collapse of Metronet .
Recent failures of TfL's Oyster Card ticketing system may see PFIs going the same way.
Twice in the last two weeks London Underground has had to open the 'gateline' owing to large numbers of valid Oyster cards being rejected by the system.
The expensive glitches have driven TfL to distraction, so in true "Partnership" style they have named and shamed the PFI contractors responsible for the system.
"We believe that (the latest) problem, resulted from incorrect data being sent out by our contractor, Transys," TfL said.
Voice of London and TfL mouth-piece Tony Travers was more forthright in the Guardian: "Transys just need to get a grip, sort it out and make sure that it doesn't happen again" he said.
However, TfL's continued insistence on publically shafting its contractors at every opportunity is likely to cost London dear. Private sector bids for Infracos BCV & SSL, the soon to be disaggregated former Metronet companies, will no doubt reflect the reputational risks of working for TfL.
***Oyster Card readers are on the blink again this morning meaning that Pay as You Go customers are travelling for free...***
Second failure in two weeks - see here
***There was a significant failure of TfL's Oyster ticketing system this morning with readers on both buses and Tube stations unable to read the cards.
As a consequence a significant number of Oyster cards have been corrupted...
UPDATE: Cards used in the last 24 hours are most likely to be affected, with the system unable to recognise them
UPDATE 2: Understood to be over 100,000 Oyster cards affected***
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