Benefits of the Deep Alliance explained...

This from ITV... 

 In an article posted on the company's website, South West Trains explained why the heat was affecting their services.

    Very hot weather can have an impact on the train service we can deliver. As with all metals, the track we use to run our trains expands and contracts depending on its temperature, i.e. the hotter it gets, the more it expands. Just like a car on a warm day, the metal can reach temperatures far in excess of the surrounding air temperature.

    Whilst we carry out a significant amount of work to prepare for the impact of hot weather by using hydraulic machines to artificially stress the rails to cope with high temperatures, over the weekend we have seen temperatures on our tracks of almost 50oc. The ageing condition of our infrastructure has meant that despite the preparation work that has taken place, we have had to impose speed restrictions at certain locations on our network

– South West Trains 

That's the way to do it! (Where's the video news release? Ed)

East Coast takes the PIS - Official

This from a Mr Swift (no, not that one)...

Anyone noticed the White Elephants along the ECML stations supposedly displaying all the delights of Real Time Train Information, Special Notices, Piss Poor Performance Figures and yes, Internet Access with a thermal printer!

This example is, or was, to be found at Retford.

Well progress indeed, having not worked for at least 12 months, the once beautiful pristine units, rusting away have now been replaced by a piece of tarmac, theft no, progress yes? 

One cannot help but think that the various franchise commitments to invest thousands in the greater flow of information to the public has seen money well spent!

Passenger information... delayed

This from the Office of Rail Regulation...

Securing better passenger information

Train operators have asked for more time to prepare for new obligations aimed at ensuring passengers receive appropriate, accurate and timely information, the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) confirmed today.

Oh the irony!

Passenger information - keeping it up to date

This from Percy Kilometer...

ATOC's "Nationalrail" website appears unaware that Cambridge now has TWO more platforms - which opened a month ago at the timetable change in mid-December.

Perhaps Eye should remind ATOC that the franchise also changes hands at midnight on February the 4th?

Hopefully they will be ready to update their site accordingly?

UPDATE: This from a Mr Layt...

When NRES has done with Cambridge can you send their station plan makers in the direction of Reading which saw major changes including new platform numbers at Christmas?

Joy In Heaven Over One Sinner That Repenteth..

This from Michael Williams, author of the newly published On the Slow Train Again...

With evening peak chaos at Euston last night, following an incident on a train at Leighton Buzzard, a well deserved plaudit for NR, Virgin and London Midland for exemplary information provision in dispersing crowds onto alternative routes.

I was caught up in it as I waited on a train for Glasgow.

After all I wrote in the Daily Mail on Saturday about poor information over delays, this was a job well done!

Okay Michael, Eye will puff your new tome - buy it here.

UPDATE: This from Michael Williams, again...

Eye readers might also be interested to know that my 'Slow Train' books occupy three of the Top Five railway book slots on Amazon today.

The other two are by a deceased person (S.N.Pike) and somebody who didn't actually write the book (M. Portillo).

That's quite enough book puffery. Ed.

UPDATE: This from Leo Pink...

What?

How can it been that Amazon does not have the many worthy tomes by the World's Greatest Living Transport Correspondent and author filling the top of its railway books list?

Shome mishtake shurely.

UPDATE: This from The World's Greatest Living Transport Correspondent...

In response to Leo Pink, I am at number 16, 21, 23, 37 and 70!

Travel information - TfL shows ATOC how to do it

This from the TfL website...

Updated Web Developers' Area and free travel information go live today. Free provision of data part of Transport for London's (TfL's) digital strategy and supports the Mayor's commitment to make data available to the public.

Compare and contrast TfL's policy with that of ATOC, where the monopoly supplier of UK rail information charges developers a hefty fee to use 'live departure board' & 'journey planning data' - even when the resulting apps are to be offered to users for free.

Of course the failure of TOC's to provide effective communications during the recent poor weather has revealed the limitations of ATOC's approach.

Meanwhile the Mayor and TfL are keen to exercise more influence over the Greater London rail network - with one of the prizes being the better integration of passenger information so that rail travellers can be kept informed about network performance.

Hopefully TfL have made an appropriate submission to David Quarmby?

Social media heroes and villians in the snow

This from SN Barnes...

With lessons obviously learned from last year, Eurostar has outshone most domestic TOC's with their immediate and steady use of twitter to give frequent updates on a service that was doing a lot better than cross channel flights.

Aside from the wonderfully boring Nicola @chilternrailway telling us nothing was out of order, the efforts of South Eastern's ("the trains are all fecked") @Train_Driver has proven to be the most accurate, honest, and reliable when compared to the fault line slips between what the TOC's were putting on line, what NRES published and the train information displays at the point of delivery.

Passengers, of course, are no longer surprised by kafka-esque relationship between 'official information' and the actual presence of the trains they purport to describe.