Scotland yesterday

This via @NetworkRailScot...

A snowplough clearing the Girvan-Stranraer line yesterday.

Dear National News Editors...

Bad news for lazy hacks across the land!

Apparently abroad is also completely useless at dealing with snow.

An honourable mention to Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph, therefore, for this.

And with Eurostar services caped, it's official once again...

Continent Cut Off!

For you the snow is over - says DB?

Once our Teutonic friends have bought out all the TOCs and NR's exciting new RIMs perhaps we could have a couple of these please?

With a bowler tip to the latest edition of RAILDATE.

A reminder of how cold it was!

This from a Mr Drayne...

Willersley Tunnel (Northern portal), near Matlock Bath, Christmas Day 2010:


According to the Met Office the temperature was officially recorded as 'brass monkeys'.

Christmas Travel Tips - FuCC

This from Pedal Steel...

How to spot that First Capital Connect Great Northern is running an emergency timetable.

Platform staff have no idea when the next train is arriving.

All trains are listed as cancelled - until they arrive.

Pointless signs - Tamworth station

Eye salutes London Midland for this encouragingly festive message seen at Tamworth station today.

No doubt an equal source of delight to CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast who also serve the station.


Doomed I tell you, we are all doomed!

Normality is a relative thing...

This from Dr Beard...

Seen this from East Coast?

EAST COAST SERVICES RETURN TO NORMAL - WEDNESDAY 22 DECEMBER

If this is Rail Barbie's idea of 'normal' (ie hourly not half hourly to Leeds and Newcastle and the fringe services chopped) then roll on the German invasion.

Or is she doing it deliberately to make the next private sector franchisee look good however badly they perform?

RAIL misses deadline

Much chagrin amongst Eye readers over the non-appearance of subscription copies of RAIL

The Fact Compiler has had words with RAIL editor Nigel Harris and asked why copies are now over a week late dropping through subscriber letter-boxes.

Nigel offers the following...

I’m in the same boat – my copy hasn’t arrived either!

The editorial team did their stuff and it went to press on time, it was printed on time and posted – by first class post, as usual – on time, on Friday December 10.

However, once the magazine is posted there’s nothing we can do other than have conversations with the Royal Mail – and those conversations have certainly taken place. You can be sure about that.

I apologise to all disappointed subscribers about the delay – because believe me, the last thing my team wants is for our work to be delayed, but we really do have have no control once it’s posted.

The Royal Mail says it will clear the backlog – caused by the weather – as soon as possible.

Perhaps time for some vertical integration in the publishing world?

Eye looks forward to Bauer buying the Royal Mail.

UPDATE: The Fact Compiler's copy arrived today, courtesy of Mr Postie. A fiver in the Christmas box me thinks.

Yesterday's ECML woe

Much media excitement yesterday over disruption to the East Coast Main Line

This from the BBC...

Thousands of rail passengers are being urged to reschedule their journeys after a power failure caused havoc on the East Coast mainline...

Passengers heading north from Kings Cross were advised to use alternative services from St Pancras, heading to Yorkshire, or on the West Coast mainline from Euston to Glasgow.

But what's this?

The same story was illustrated with this picture of Kings Cross:

It would appear that not all operators gave up the ghost quite as easily as nationalised East Coast...

ScotRail unveils clan O'Toole tartan

With a bowler tip to Model Rail...


An ingenious engineering solution to adverse weather conditions.

Pointless signs - Quarmby, a message to you.

Whilst David Quarmby pores over South Eastern's non-performance in the ice and snow...

...perhaps the RAC Chairman should also examine 'passenger communications best practice' elsewhere on the network.

These both from A Frog...

Behold Crewe:


And rejoice in Newport...


Of course London and the South Eastern is the very engine of our economy.

Happily, with a very generous NR Schedule 8 donation, SouthEastern should soon be able to offer real time passenger information; direct to blackberrys, iphones, ipads, your fingernail, etc...

And perhaps also an Operations Director, after a year of waiting?

UPDATE: This from Guzzibasher...

Erm, ref "Whilst David Quarmby pours over South Eastern's non-performance in the ice and snow".

Methinks that should be "pores", unless he's got a large jug of anti-freeze!

Corrected. Thank you.

Network Rail: Clearing the Way

Just beautiful!

And so much better than any in the Cl 7x series...


Bet Petrol-head never saw one this big from his Jag window!

Anyone seen any decent shots of the Snowblowers?

UPDATE: This from Sir Humphrey Beeching...

My PS was always most impressed that station platforms had usually been cleared before trains appeared.

Of course my journey was much later in the day.

Perhaps something Sir David Quarmby will look into?

In a Blackfriars Court bunker...

This from a Mr William Dargen...

I thought that Eye readers might appreciate this:



A little bit sweary but amusing none the less.

UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...

Very droll.

But not nearly as funny as SouthEastern's PR being run over by a Ferrari last Monday...

One for the Black Book of PR?

Pointless signs - Charing Cross

Eye salutes those keeping the railway open

The Network Rail press office is doing a sterling job showing what the industry is doing to keep the railway moving.

And providing hardened hacks and picture desks with some great pictures...


NR's media mastermind Kevin Groves offered the following helpful caption for the picture above:

Great picture of an MPV (multi-purpose vehicle) de-icer / snowplough, clearing the route to East Grinstead at lunchtime today (1pm, 02/12/10, taken from the rear).

Perhaps just as well the last bit was in parenthesis.

WCML Upgrade suffers whiteout

Our man on the Pendolino reports...

Conductors on WCML Glasgow to London route have been told to announce over the intercom that:

"trains are not allowed to travel at over 100mph because of adverse weather conditions."

Why?

If this is an engineering or design problem, we should know.

Or is it just another 'wrong kind of snow' excuse for general slackness and lateness?

My 13.53 from Preston is over an hour late yet barely a flake has fallen on entire journey...

UPDATE: This from a Mr Tony Miles...

Ice thrown up is breaking outer skin of windows.

I gather 100mph avoids it being thrown up as much in the first place.

I think all 125mph trains are restricted to 100mph when this happens & 'tilt mode' is deactivated on Pendos.

Sensible really.

UPDATE: This from Sunny South...

You will find that NR have written into the rule book that speed restrictions apply in any case where disc-braked stock and drifting snow are concerned, so VWC are merely being good boys & girls and looking after both rules & regs and keeping Joe Public informed.

Yours watching South Eastern self-destruct with growing concern...

Exclusive: Pictures of West Highland Line avalanche.

This just in from NR's Internet Rapid Rebuttal Unit...

Please see below a photograph taken yesterday from a helicopter flying over the West Highland Line.


The photo shows one of four avalanches which took place on Friday, closing the line between Tyndrum Upper and Bridge of Orchy.

The avalanches came from the slopes of Beinn Odher which the line crosses.

We have been unable to clear the site to date due to the risk of further avalanches, however, avalanche specialists are travelling to the site via helicopter today to take bore samples and provide a more detailed understanding of the risk.

Provided that the all-clear is given, we expect to move our snow-blowers onto site to begin clearing the line tomorrow.

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

Do NR choppers play the Ride of the Valkyries as a sound track for their inspection work.

Snow stops trains - this time in Sweden

This from The Raver...

According to Railway-technology.com:

Swedish trains have been paralysed after the network was hit with delays and cancellations caused by heavy snow fall and low temperatures.

Sverige schadenfreude!

Euroscuffle - Fiennes would have spoken to 'the brains'!

Telegrammed by our International Correspondent
The list of interviewees grilled by Messrs Garnett and Gressier is an impressive Who’s Who of senior cross-channel suits.

Director of This, Head of That, CEO of The Other, not to mention a couple of household name woodentops.

The Independent Review had some very good access to some very literate people; all of whom, no doubt, had an interesting chat with their corporate legal teams before facing the panel.

What might leave some of the Grumpy Old Railway Operating Managers (who have experience of chairing such incident enquiries), a tad discombobulated is the apparent lack of interface with any front line operating staff.

Which left the resulting report denuded of first-hand evidence from anyone who was actually on duty that night (whether from the two operators at either end of the Chunnel, or from the tunnel operator itself).

A conversation with the Eurotunnel chief controller, who had a succession of failures unfold under him, about the spirit and actualitee of how he, Eurostar and SNCF actually worked together, is reduced to a recommendation about upgrading the existing telephone link to a video facility and some training courses.

As a consequence the rest of the non-engineering parts of the review end up being concerned with the provision and distribution of emergency pastries (shurely croissant? Ed).

For instance it fails to mention that the relationship between the tunnel operator, the infrastructure controllers either side, and the passenger train operator, is just pants. As evidenced by Eurotunnel’s unprecedented 'Not Us Guv' press release on the 19th December.

Further proof, were it needed, that the current operational framewok is an artificial construct – a set of flaky interfaces imposed by bankers with their main eye on collecting every penny from a projected 16 million Eurostar passengers, made even worse by the intrusions of HM Customs.

It is the most over-complicated interface between any two railways in Europe, and perhaps the world.

And things won't get any better until it is simplified.

Judging by this report we won't hold our breath waiting...

Brown out of the broom cupboard!

This video response from Richard Brown to today's Independent Review:



Eurostar's response to the Independent Review can be found here.

UPDATE: This, via Twitter, from cbuchanancubed...

The full independent review on Eurostar snow failure can be found here.