RAIL exposes Hammond's lack of trousers

This from Rosebud...

There was good news on the front cover of the latest edition of RAIL which highlighted a massive £5bn investment in the Great Western Main Line, adding for good measure that it was the ‘biggest revamp since Brunel!'.

So excited was the industry by this sudden influx of new money that an event was held at Paddington on the 14th July to celebrate the occasion, presided over by none other than our very own Chief-Envelope-Opener, Paper-knife Hammond!

Away from the glare of the Thameslink debacle Hammond was able to lap up the plaudits of an admiring industry delighted by his sudden largess.

RAIL even afforded space on page 10 to record Paper-knife gushing that this was “a new age for rail in Britain”!

But what's this?

All is not as it seems.

A mere 34 pages later the World's Greatest Living Transport Correspondent fisked the entire stunt.

Wolmar (for it was he) explained that the £5bn consisted of money already spent and reheated previous announcements:

• Crossrail £2.2bn
• Electrification £800m
• IEP £150m
• Reading £850m
• Resignalling £600m
• Cotswolds £17m
• and Newport station £20m.

Sadly that only came to a paltry £3,787m.

Happily by adding in Swindon – Kemble redoubling and estimates for various national projects such as ERTMS, W10 freight improvements, Access for All and the new rail communication system the figure finally tottered towards the £5bn figure, sort of...

Still, good to see that RAIL is prepared to sup with the devil and poke him in the eye at the same time.

UPDATE: This from NR's Internet Rapid Rebuttal Unit...

I was really pleased to see RAIL put on its front cover the work which is going on to modernise Great Western.

This is a recognition of the huge amount of work (Captain Deltic tells me we should use the BR term 'total route modernisation') happening along the route.

No-one has claimed it was new money, but Network Rail and the DfT, rightly, wanted to communicate the scale of the work and what it means to passengers.

When we are asked - inevitably - about the amount of investment, we totted up all the projects and came to that figure.

Knowing how fond Christian is of flashy CGI, he and other Eye readers should point their browsers to Network Rail's YouTube channel and marvel at what we are doing to revamp the Great Western here.

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

Using the same figures eventually provided by Network Rail to the World's Greatest Living Transport Correspondent, and with some extrapolation of the global figures for ETCS and GSM-R costs, I clicked SUM on my spreadsheet and discovered the total cost for the GWML to be £5,004 million.

This precision confirms that the '£5 billion' label is entirely fictitious.

We can only conclude that GWML is the new WCML.

Can a Black Diamond Day on the Western now be far away?

UPDATE: This from the World's Greatest Living Transport Correspondent, evidently in a misanthropic mood...

I hate flash CGI – and this one suggests that only male oversized robots will be travelling on the trains in 2020.

And why does the train only have four carriages on its way to Newport’s ‘iconic’ station?

And the music sounds like something out of the Danish version of The Killing.

I think we should be told.

The Stripping of the Altars

This, from a decidedly stroppy, Captain Deltic...

According to Transport Secretary Philip Hammond, at the launch of the GWML modernisation programme on 14 July:

‘This is another fantastic step on the journey of renaissance which the railway is taking.

'Nobody would have believed 20 years ago that we would be building new railway lines, refurbishing our rail infrastructure, electrifying hundreds of miles of additional track, seeing passenger numbers double and passenger satisfaction improving dramatically.

'This is literally a new age of the train in Britain and a very exciting one too’.

Er, 20 years ago, that's 1991.

So presumably our expectations would have been more-of-the-same based on the previous decade:

• With 900 route miles electrified by 1991 we would have been expecting more routes under the wires in future.

• With passenger miles up by a quarter to the highest levels since 1949 we would have been expecting more growth.

• With Network SouthEast starting total route modernisation we would have expected more refurbishment.

• In 1991 new trains were rolling out of York, Derby and Washwood Heath. Whither those centres of excellence now? (Or should that be 'wither'.)

• The Crossrail Bill had just been submitted so we were expecting new lines and overcrowding in the South East to be addressed.

What we didn't expect was a dire recession, as a consequence of economic mismanagement.

What we didn't expect was a botched privatisation which multiplied the railway's subsidy fivefold.

What we didn't expect was a stop start rolling stock procurement that saw a period of 1064 days without a new train order and the current hiatus at 838 days and counting...

What we didn't expect was the Civil Service specifying a replacement for the HST

And we most certainly didn't expect McNulty to have to remind a once integrated industry to work together for the good of the passenger.

I'm inured to politicians claiming daft self-serving things, but we can't let them airbrush out the past in their attempt to turn a pig's ear into a brushed polyester purse.

So renaissance? Well, yes, so long as we don't forget that it followed some very dark, dark ages.

Rail privatisation has failed - Official (again)

Oh how we laughed!

The last time the current lot were in power we were assured that Nationalised industries were woefully inefficient at running railways and that what was required was the sharp suits and shouty braces of the private sector.

And lo, so it came to pass, the railways were flogged off and costs trebled (shurely the tax payer achieved better value for money? Ed)

So what are we to make of this information briefed to most of the Sunday papers?

Deutsche Bahn, Renfe, Albellio and Trenitalia are interested in bidding for the InterCity West Coast franchise.

DafT - have you no shame?

Perhaps Cameron, Petrol-head or Cruella might care to apologise, on behalf of the "back to basics" adulterer Major, for having got it so terribly, terribly wrong?

Trainy Speakibold - Petrol-head Hammond

This from our very own Secretary of State for Transport...

"A key focus of this audit will be the effectiveness of implementation of the Review recommendations and the extent to which additional measures are necessary to deliver the expected outcomes for them."

Perhaps worth reminding the SofS that a stream of words does not necessarily equate to useful information...

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

If the SoS is concerned about 'real passengers' , there must be an opposite category of 'unreal' passengers.

Does he mean passengers on trains and at stations as opposed to people who are thinking about becoming passengers? Is there a single adjective? I rather like 'putative'.

Eye readers can no doubt help.

UPDATE: This from Our International Correspondent...

Real passengers are carbon-based, 80% water, have a valid ticket, and are sometimes invited to stay overnight in trains courtesy of Sir Herbert Walker's wrong-type-of-third-rail legacy.

Unreal passengers are smaller, made by Airfix and you have to cut them off a sprue and paint them.

UPDATE: This from Mr Tuppence Worth...

My commute is provided by one of two TOCs – one being Souter’s route to the capital, the other having moved into the hands of DB earlier this year.

The former have issued an emergency timetable the past two days and their usual website has been replaced with key information for would-be patrons including said timetable. This strategy has enabled them to cope with both fewer staff showing up and reduced rolling stock and network reliability/availability. To all intents and purposes they have kept to their revised plans.

The latter have been a little more optimistic and claimed to be able to run a full service south of the Antonine Wall. Needless to say, they haven’t kept to that for the past two days and made numerous cancellations and curtailments, and been subject to many a delay.

So which is more beneficial to passengers: bold ambition or humble realism?

UPDATE: This from a Lucas Skybanker...

After the pathetic availability of info this week I would have thought all the franchises and whoever it is who controls timetable and running info should make it freely available to developers and re-publishers.

Sadly ATOC appears to be determined to milk this data for all it's worth.

On the tube it is easy to see how things are going, you can simply look up a map showing train movements in real time.

Shouldn't all trains have GPS on them with real time info on their position available to all?

UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...

I see that Petrol-head has asked David Quarmby to audit the performance of various transport modes during the recent severe weather.

Perhaps a strange choice as Quarmby just happens to be Chairman of road lobby group the RAC Foundation.

Of course Quarmby is welcome to audit the railways, providing Hammond asks Swampy to do the same for the road network.

UPDATE: This from The Archer and numerous others...

I suspect this is a simple typo and should have read Rail Passengers, the audit will after all look into various transport modes.

Still, pretty shocking that this typo wasn’t picked up, particularly given the increased importance of information during periods of disruption!

My message to the SoS is clear: dictated letters must be proof-read.

The New Politics: An end to spin! - Official

Telegrammed by The Velopodist
Eye readers might be interested in this email issued by the Department for Transport press office today.

The email reads:

Some of your will have seen the release that Network Rail have out today on ‘Investing to Build Britain’s Economy’. In case any of you are writing something on this, please see a quote below from the Transport Secretary for your use.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said,

“The financial crisis which we have inherited means that difficult decisions will have to be made on the future of spending across Government, including on our transport system.

“However, we are clear that we will not make the mistakes of the past and protect current spending at the cost of cutting back investment on transport infrastructure that is vital to our economic future.

“That is why I was pleased that the Chancellor announced in the budget that he would prioritise spending that would boost our economy. During this difficult spending review period I will do everything I can to persuade my colleagues that investing in transport infrastructure is a sound investment for the future.

“But if we are to win this argument it is imperative that every pound we invest is well spent. This week’s ORR report states that we have the most expensive railways in Europe. Network Rail needs to become much more efficient so that taxpayers get the best possible return for their investment.”

So Petrol-head Hammond quotes the ORR as saying Britain has Europe's most expensive railways.

Hmmm, perhaps un petit economic avec le verite?

What the ORR actually said was that Network Rail's costs were 40 per cent higher than those of the four most efficient network operators in Europe.

It's hard to believe that, for example, the non-standard Irish railways don't have higher infrastructure costs.

The DfT say they don't want to change the statement.

Hard to see why they would, really. It's not as if it matters whether what a cabinet minister says is true or not, does it?

Hammond - all talk and no trousers

Telegrammed by Ithuriel
To recap on Bonusgate...

According to the Guardian report on the Network Rail AGM, . 'There were 37 votes in favour of the pay report, 31 against and nine active abstentions, including the Department for Transport's single vote'.

Oh yes, DfT is indeed a member.

And Mr Hammond has been writing to Ricky Haystacks asking him to go easy on the Iain Coucher Classic Car fund payments.

Not only that but the Prime Minister's spokeswoman said that Mr Cameron was 'disappointed'.at the news of the vote in favour of moolah-all-round.

So come on Phil - why did DfT abstain?