Industry unveils IIP...

Exciting news from Everybody!

Everybody today unveiled the Initial Industry Plan.

Everybody said:

"Railways... booming... bright future... considerable growth... genuine partnership."

Everybody congratulated Everybody and concluded by saying that excessive costs were the fault of Everybody else, obviously.

UPDATE: This from Banker76...

Not quite.

Crowbar Bob reckons it’s all the fault of the privateers and their obscene profits which have ‘drained billions’ from the industry.

Problem is, he might well be right.

The Fact Compiler wonders if Banker76 hasn't noticed some of the above inflation pay rises the RMT has recently won for its members. Good of Crow Bar to confirm that it really is the fault of Everybody else.

Eye's latest list of Twittering TOCs

This for those not on Twitter.

Eye is maintaining a list of Twittering TOCs.

Remember, to be in the list you must be interactive. Not just broadcast.

Be there or be square!

New submissions always welcome (via Twitter of course - @TheFactCompiler)

That includes you Freighties, Network Rail and Heritage Railways!

Have we got GOOD news for you? No!

Today the nation's editors and their deputies travel to Glasgow for the annual bun-fight that is the Society of Editors National Conference.

The society's 400 members will be welcomed to Glasgow tonight by no less a figure than Alex Salmond, after which the owner of the Evening Standard and Independent, Alexander Lebedev, will give the keynote speech.

The event which is running from the 14th to the 16th of November is taking place at the Grand Central Hotel at the city's Central station.

What a marvelous opportunity for the railway to show all those uber-hacks from 'Fleet Street' exactly what it can do as it speeds them to Scotland's second city!

Sadly not.

This from Virgin's website:

Until 1500, train services will operate between Warrington Bank Quay and London Euston, and between Preston and Scotland.

Rail replacement coaches will operate between;

Warrington Bank Quay and Preston

Good to see that the industry's PR's have their fingers on the pulse!

ATOC claims 99% of railway spend is waste!

This from the Archer...

Further to Eye's earlier piece on RAIL's expose of the doomed nature of railway financing, did anyone else hear Michael Roberts of ATOC on Radio 5 this morning?

He rolled out the following amazing statistic:

"For every pound that is spent on services by the government just one penny is spent on running the railways."

To Listen Again click here and go to 1:51.51 into the programme.

The canny journalist obviously wasn’t going to be caught out by what he must have thought was an All Fools' day wind-up.

If only this were so!

UPDATE: This just in from @EdwardWelsh, not via Twitter...

I am delighted to see that it wasn't just Michael and I who were up at the crack of dawn this morning.

I am confused, however, why you think that "services" applies only to train services?

When talking to a national audience, I think you can safely assume that they would know he was referring to all government services and not just train services.

Happy All Fools' Day.

Industry bust by 2020? Eye told you so!

Telegrammed by Bulldog Drummond
RAIL (issue 640) breathlessly reports a shock meeting on 14 March where Dr Mike Mitchell told railway chiefs that the industry faces economic meltdown by the start of CP6 (2020).

Of course this won't be news to Eye readers who were told this was going to happen wayback in December 2008.

The CP4 settlement exacerbated the problem and by 2014 leaves Network Rail with a £31.5bn debt mountain costing a cool £1.7bn to service.

If this goes on to 2020 DafT has come to the conclusion that NR's debts would cost £4.5bn a year to service and that 'urgent, radical reform is needed to slash costs generally.'

What was even more surprising is RAIL's description that eighty ashen-faced industry chiefs 'listened in shock' to this news.

What do these guys do all day?

They certainly don't read Bill Emery's vivid prose, look at what passes for Network Rail's company reports and, crucially, don't understand that even gravy trains can hit the buffers.

But Eye readers can relax.

RAIL reports these comforting words from a Network Rail spokesman: 'Our debt payment charges are more than manageable and only increase by affordable investment that's supported by a business case which delivers a positive return over time. By 2014 Network Rail will be amongst the most efficient rail infrastructure providers in the world, having cut 50% of its costs...'

So that's all right then.

UPDATE: This from Ithuriel...

But that doomsday debt scenario is dependent on DfT using the Network Rail credit card (aka the RAB) to the max and ORR letting them do it.

And ORR is already questioning Lord Adonis flashing the plastic on electrification.

So the real message from Mike Mitchell is 'things will get really nasty if my Secretary of State carries on spending money he hasn't got and ORR hasn't budgeted for'.

UPDATE: This from our man at 222 Marylebone Road...

It's all very well Bulldog calling RAIL's cover headline 'breathless', but if you had a scoop wouldn't you be a bit up front?

What is more interesting is that the meeting was held on 4 March, yet there was absolutely nothing about it in Informed Sources published three weeks later.

No doubt Captain Deltic will try to cover up being last with the news with a smokescreen of brain numbing analysis.

Whatever happened to boiling frogs?

Latest OJEU reveals massive UK rail investment

Telegrammed by Leo Pink
In this week's list of Railway related invitations to tender published in the Official Journal of the European Union, only one, just one, is for a project in the UK.

Read it and weep.

UK-York: consultative engineering and construction services
Title attributed to the contract: NRM+ The Great Hall Exhibition Refurbishment. The NRM+ vision is to renew the Great Hall of the National Railway Museum and create a dynamic new visitor experience which delivers a better understanding of the significance of the railway story to the world in which we live. To help deliver phase one of this vision, the organisation has decided to engage the services of a Building Services and Structural Engineering Consultancy. These consultants will work alongside the Project Manager, architect, Exhibition Designers and NRM stakeholder teams to develop a detailed design proposal which builds on the extensive development work that NRM has commissioned to date

Eheu fugaces labuntur anni (with a bowler tip to Horace).

50% gritting cuts signal opportunity for the railways

According to the Downing Street spokesman in the Lobby today:

Councils have been told by Transport Secretary Lord Adonis to cut salt-spreading by up to 50%.

As this risks making road travel less safe isn't this a perfect opportunity for the TOCs and NR to work together so as to generate some additional traffic?

Providing, of course, intending passengers can actually reach their local stations...

UPDATE: This genius solution from Tom West...

Surely the obvious thing is to persuade councils to only grit the side of the road leading *to* railway stations.

WTF?

Who killed the Railway Forum?

So farewell to the Railway Forum which shuffled off this mortal coil on the 1st January 2010.

Yes, the grey men have finally done in the invisible man!

Set up at privatisation to give the industry a united voice the Railway Forum was laid to rest by an unholy alliance of Network Rail, ATOC and the Railway Industry Association.

Of course any suggestion that the grey men hoped we wouldn't notice is completely wide of the mark, which is why the Railway Forum website is still up and running.

Sadly the abolition of the Railway Forum is a signal that the industry really isn't bothered about speaking with one voice on anything.

A triumph for narrow self interest and factionalism but a victory for the DfT and the slick lobbyists of the aviation and automobile industries

Eye salutes all involved!

UPDATE: This from the Continuity Railway Forum...

I thought Eye's readers might be interested in the following press release which was almost issued this week:

INDUSTRY UNITED IN ABOLISHING PAN-INDUSTRY ORGANISATION

There was widespread delight today that the Railway Forum which represented all sides of the industry has finally been abolished.

Michael Windbag of ATOC said, "This is wonderful news. Now we do not have to be bothered pretending that we are a united industry and we can get on with feathering our own members' nests."

Paul Faceless of Network Rail added, "This just goes to show that we are in charge and don't you dare forget it!"

Jeremy Bureaucrat of RIA, said "I am delighted that we have finally killed of an organisation that was dangerously enthusiastic, put the case for rail and had several ideas which were not invented here."

The Forum's last Chairman, Richard Tunnel-Chaos, speaking from a broom cupboard, concluded "Basically we lost the will to go on, but I 'm not really to blame. Any news on my pay rise?"

No funeral and no flowers requested!

UPDATE: Wolmar also mourns the Forum's passing...

It was the membership that was the problem.

Railway not getting its message across!

Total Politics has published its list of Top 100 Public Affairs Professionals.

Sigh!

Spot the missing industry.

UPDATE: This from the Major...

That the Falkland Islands should make it into the Top 100 puts the railway's lobbying failure into perspective.

Where's a soi disant veteran observer when you need one...?

Left and right hand non-synchronous

Does anyone remember Soap?

The story of the Campbells and the Tates.

The theme tune always signed off with the line: "confused, you will be...".

So what are we to make of these two stories that both appeared on broadsheet websites today?

This from the Gruaniad...

The rail industry is urging the government to run shorter trains in order to meet Britain's climate change obligations. Removing carriages outside rush hour would conserve energy and reinforce rail's reputation as one of the greenest modes of transport, says an industry manifesto published today.

But what's this?

In the Independent they ran with...

The number of main line trains is only about 5 per cent greater than it was in 1994 yet they are carrying 60 per cent more passengers, a rail industry strategy report said today. Planned additional carriages are "desperately needed" on a system likely to have to accommodate a doubling in passengers over the next 30 years, the report added.

Is anybody actually managing the message?

UPDATE: Perhaps we should ask Pete...

Coucher issues challenge to NR

Near unalloyed joy last week, amongst the TOC community, following Iain Coucher's intervention on fares.

Speaking to the FT after his speech to Wednesday's Passenger Focus conference Coucher said:

"If people are genuinely not travelling because of high fares, that's an issue for us. If we want people to use the most environmentally sustainable form of transport, we should look at the impact of pricing."

But what's this?

According to consultants employed by both ORR, and Network Rail, the UK has the most expensive railway infrastructure in the world!

This year alone NR will receive a Network Grant of £3.76bn from the taxpayer.

With the government committed to getting rail users to contribute ever more to running the railway it seems timely to repeat Bowker's Law:

There are only two sources of railway funding - the consumer and taxpayers.

As the recession bites ever deeper passenger traffic is leveling off, whilst the global downturn in trade and the movement of goods is hitting railfreight hard. So getting more from the consumer will be a struggle.

Meanwhile, Network Rail has a fixed regulatory settlement that sees its funding guaranteed for the next five years.

So if fares are to come down, then somebody will need to pick up the slack.

Up to the challenge Network Rail?

Ford declares war!

Not seen today...


Branson, Bowker, Coucher, Lockhead, Ludeman, Shooter, Souter, et al; fancy putting a couple of quid in the pot to make this real?

The green grass

On the day the railways stopped because of a bit of snow...

Here true ingenuity and pluck!

Captain Bob, with bowler tip to Dan.

Once men like these built the railways.

String 'em up!

It's time for the annual round of recriminations over who is responsible for the Christmas shutdown.

This from the Independent:

"Train operating companies said yesterday that they would be ready to introduce services from next year but blamed the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) for not co-ordinating an agreement.

"Atoc, however, said it was prepared to take part in meetings with Network Rail and the Government to discuss a new Christmas timetable, but it blamed the Government for failing to co-ordinate talks.

"Meanwhile, the Government has laid the blame at the door of individual operators, which it says are the only ones who can act to introduce the services."

What a complete and utter shower.

Proof positive that the structure of the industry remains deeply dysfunctional (Tories please note).

ATOC & NR directors please get a grip and sort this - now.

It's not as if resolving this is above your over generous pay grades!