Bowker to resign?

***BBC 10 'o' Clock News reporting Richard Bowker to stand down as Chief Executive of National Express Group***

UPDATE: This from Dominic O'Connell in the The Times...

National Express, the embattled transport group, has been rocked by the surprise resignation of Richard Bowker.

Jumped or pushed?

UPDATE: This just in from Charles Yerkes...

This is no surprise.

In the private sector you either perform or go.

Others in the 'private sector' may wish to note!

UPDATE: This is the Gruaniad's pessimistic take...

It is likely that the new chief executive will arrive too late to co-ordinate a solution to the east coast contract, which analysts say will have to be renegotiated or handed back to the Department for Transport by the end of the month

And not just the East Coast franchise but potentially NatEx's East Anglia and c2c franchises as well, playing havoc with DafT finances.

But fear not - Lord Adonis assures us that the HLOS remains "very" affordable.

Sinking ships?

An extra-ordinary puff piece on Richard Bowker in tonight's Evening Standard.

Chris Blackhurst begins:

"There are some people I'd fancy my chances at poker with. Richard Bowker isn't one of them. The boss of National Express is in the midst of a crisis but he doesn't show it."

And so it continues, interminably, until the final icky making paragraph:

Hard to imagine now, but on the day National Express won the franchise, his wife was giving birth to their second child. They were so thrilled that they discussed calling him Waverley, after the Edinburgh station. Young Charlie Bowker at least can give thanks that better sense prevailed.

Nice of Bowker to drag his own family into the media spotlight. Of course we should be grateful for small mercies. Bowker, a friend of the Blairs, managed to avoid emulating Cherie and going for a full 'Balmoral disclosure'.

No matter.

So why did Bowker decide to bare his soul to the relaunched, good news, London Evening Standard.

Obviously any connection with the current search for a London Underground managing director is entirely co-incidental.

UPDATE: This just in from Charles Yerkes...

Interesting. Applications for the MD's role have to be in by the 22nd of this month.

And of course Bowker started his railway career at the Underground.

Barbarian at the Gates?

Whilst ATOC self immolates finally some good news from the Brothers!

Regular readers of the Eye will be aware that ATOC has been unable to update their enthusiast guidelines owing to anyone who knows anything about the railway industry being defenestrated by Michael Roberts' new team.

However, in an unlikely turn of events, it falls to the Transport Salaried Staff Association to come to the rescue of hard pressed gricers!

Rail union TSSA are to challenge the ruling by National Express to ban train-spotters from their stations on the East Coast line.

Union general secretary Gerry Doherty, said, "Sir John Betjeman will be turning in his grave at this news. It means that the barbarians have finally taken over the industry. Only people with no sense of history would commit such an act of mindless vandalism."

The Fact Compiler feels that the term "barbarians" may be a little harsh.

Better Bowker's own words - "A villain forever more".

Rounding error?

Telegrammed by The Raver
Rewriting history is plainly becoming something of a habit for the denizens of rail privatisation.

Railway Eye readers may recollect Nigel Harris's recent confusion over the average age of rolling stock at privatisation

The latest purveyor of samizdat history is one Richard Bowker who, in a Sunday Telegraph puff-piece this weekend, claimed that 14,000 trains a day were running on the network in 1997 compared to approximately 20,000 today.

The true figure for the number of trains operating on the network in '97 is much closer to 18,500.

In the scheme of things not overly important, but National Express shareholders may wish to scrutinise this year's annual report and accounts a little more closely - just in case.