***GLA Press Release***
Mayor appoints First Deputy Mayor
22-5-2008 261
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is delighted to announce that Tim Parker has agreed to become First Deputy Mayor and Chief Executive of the GLA Group. The Mayor will also nominate Tim to be Chairman of Transport for London from 1st September 2008.
One of the first appointments to BoJo's new team was 32 year old Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor's Director for Transport Policy.
Kulveer, who starts his job on the 27th May, is tasked with:
Incompetence is no obstacle to winning contracts from this Government.
You can spunk as much public money up the wall as you like BUT say a negative word and you're out the tent faster than 82 year old Walter Wolfgang.
The Fact Compiler was, therefore, very surprised to hear Alan Wood, Chairman of Siemens in the UK, say on Radio 4 this morning that Government has left business feeling "uncertainty and concern".
Siemens is part of a joint venture bidding, with Bombardier, to deliver the new generation InterCity HST (IEP).
Perhaps the specification of this Frankenstein train is the cause of his "uncertainty and concern"?
So wedded is Gordon the Big Grin Engine to his PPPs and PFIs that piss-poor past performance is seldom an impediment to winning future work.
On 31st March this year the Transport Select Committee published its report into the Metronet shag-up.
It concluded by stating the bleedin' obvious:
20. The Government should bear the Metronet debacle in mind if and when its parent companies—Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, EDF Energy, and Thames Water—next come to bid for publicly-funded work. (Paragraph 95)
Unfortunately not bleedin' obvious enough for the Dullards who inhabit both Treasury and Daft.
For on the 8th May DafT announced that the preferred bidder for the PPP contract to widen the M25 had been awarded to Connect Plus.
Connect Plus is a consortium comprising Balfour Beatty (40%), Skanska (40%), Egis Projects SA (10%) and Atkins (10%).
As this plainly didn't show contempt enough for the Transport Select Committee some genius in Government decided to announce the decision on the very day that Gwyneth was being buried.
They must be very proud of themselves.
***Transcom Press Release***
New Transport Committee Chair announced
The House of Commons Transport Committee has today chosen Mrs Louise Ellman MP (Labour/Co-op, Liverpool, Riverside) as its new Chair. Her election was unopposed.
Mrs Ellman has been a member of the Transport Committee and its predecessor committees since she was first elected to Parliament in 1997. She is also a Co-Chair of the Advisory Council of the Parliamentary Advisory Council of Transport Safety (PACTS).
A vacancy remains for a Labour member of the Committee, who will be appointed by the House in due course.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
1. Committee Membership is as follows: Mrs Louise Ellman (Lab,
Liverpool Riverside) (Chair), Mr David Clelland (Lab, Tyne Bridge), Clive Efford (Lab, Eltham), Mr Philip Hollobone (Con, Kettering), Mr John Leech (Lib Dem, Manchester Withington), Mr Eric Martlew (Lab, Carlisle), Mr Lee Scott (Con, Ilford North), David Simpson (DUP, Upper Bann), Mr Graham Stringer (Lab, Manchester Blackley), Mr David Wilshire (Con, Spelthorne).
2. The Chair of the Committee became vacant on the death of Hon
Gwyneth Dunwoody MP on 17 April.
3. Further information about the work of the Committee can be found
at www.parliament.uk/transcom
David Pape will be taking on the role of LNE Route Director, following Dyan Crowther's move to the new Midlands & Continental Route.
David, formerly Route Director at Wessex, is seen as a safe pair of hands who is unlikely to do anything.
GM Neil Henry, who was covering the LNE role is believed to be taking on a Performance & Planning role at the Black Tower where he will act as batman to Robin.
Network Rail is again recruiting for new Public Members.
Once selected the winning candidates join the 180 Public Members of Network Rail tasked with:
Latest to join the rush for the door at Metronet before TfL takes over is Mark Thurston.
Mark, who ran the track renewal programme critical to the upgrade of the sub-surface lines, joins Safety Director Ian Prosser, Mark Cooper COO, Cooper's Chief of Staff Brennan-Brown, Engineering Director Neal Lawson and a host of others who have fled Metrodebt in recent weeks.
With Thurston going and Chief Programme Officer Steve Mole's six month secondment from CPC soon to end Railway Eye wonders what it is that TfL will actually take over?
Gordon the Big Grin Engine faces almost certain derailment at Thursday's Crewe and Nantwich by-election.
Not even the farce of Labour hereditary candidate Tamsin Dunwoody accusing cobbler's son Tinson of being a Tory "Toff" has taken focus away from the 10p tax shambles and Government lack of direction.
Candidates from both sides have been pictured track side and the pundits have buttonholed railway workers to ask voting intentions. The signals for Labour aren't good
Not surprising when you consider that the Big Grin is the only man in Britain who believes today's industry structure is fit for purpose.
The Fact Compiler is old enough to remember civilised days when you could still have a drink, platform level, Underground.
Sloane Square's Hole in the Wall had no swinging pub sign but was conveniently located, next to the up escalator, on the Westbound and it served an honest pint. For many years it had refreshed weary Gordon Gehko types returning home after a hard days insider trading. Alas, the last of its breed, it too fell victim to the New Puritanism and closed in 1985. Within its dregs now sits a sandwich bar.
Today those needing a quick bracer Underground are reliant upon their hip-flask, bottle in a brown-paper-bag or can of wife-beater.
Perhaps unsurprisingly (Kilburn being a long way from City Hall) the previous Mayor never quite got round to barring drinking on the Tube. But now BoJo has decreed that this is all to end. On the evening of Saturday 31st May 2008 drinking upon the Underground is barred! Perhaps a cruel way to exact a revenge.
Whilst there are numerous and sound safety reasons for implementing such a bar it reveals a polity which distrusts the people that elected it. Therefore, whilst publicly frowning, the Fact Compiler will, in private, be raising his glass to last orders on the Underground.
The Office of Rail Regulation has announced that Ian Prosser will be its new Director of Railway Safety.
Ian, who starts at ORR on the 4th August, is currently Director of Safety & Assurance at Metronet Rail.
ORR Chief Executive Bill Emery said: “I am delighted that Ian has agreed to join ORR. We had a very strong field for the job but Ian’s experience of change management and safety strategy and operations were particularly impressive and proved to be deciding factors."
Railway Eye wonders if this could be the same Ian Prosser who featured in Private Eye last June for having "no formal safety qualification".
Way to go Bill - that'll reassure the HMRI boys and girls!
Despite Gordon having to borrow a whopping £2bn to make good his disastrous abolition of the 10p tax rate there still appear to be funds sloshing round Whitehall for good causes.
Just in time for this weekend's Community Rail celebrations a DafT press release gushed: "Passengers on rural and regional rail services across the country are set to benefit from a £60,000 fund for Community Rail Partnerships, Rail Minister Tom Harris announced today."
Continuing in similar vein the release enthuses that each of the 23 Community Rail Partnerships can apply for individuals grants of up to £5,000 per route.
Railway Eye wonders if the innumerate Treasury Wonk who helped draw up Gordon's last budget is now advising Tom Harris at the DfT?
As our American cousins might say - do the math:
Tom, 23 x 5k = £115k.
Despite the threat of changes at the top of TfL following BoJo victory both Hendy and ToT are still in place.
Therefore, it came as something of a shock to the London railway community when it was announced today that LUL Chief Operating Officer Mike Brown has been poached by BAA to resolve the shambles that is Heathrow.
It is of course not surprising that BAA should look to LUL to help solve its problems. Perhaps worth remembering that LUL carries over a billion passengers a year, only a fraction of whom loose their luggage...
A number of commuter TOCs have declared disappointing results in Period 1.
Of particular concern is the drop in traffic and revenue on that perennial barometer of the economy South West Trains.
Traditionally InterCity routes are first to be hit in any economic downturn as both Leisure and Business travel tends to be "discretionary". Commuter routes (such as SWT) tend to be better insulated from the usual economic ebb and flow as people still need to get to work.
Optimists ascribe the dip to the disjointed Easter and School Holiday period but DfT and Treasury wonks will be awaiting Period 2 figures with bated breath.
A new Network Rail "Route" will grace the railway map on the 25th May.
To the delight of all Old Farts (O.F.) the new route is to be called "Midland and Continental" and subsumes both the Midland Mainline and CTRL (or High Speed 1 for the optimists amongst you).
Better still is the news that Network Rail has appointed the splendid Dyan Crowther (of ATN & LNE Route fame) to be its new Route's Director.
Railway Eye understands that the rump of the London North Eastern route, bereft of the Midland, is now being led by General Manager Neil Henry as acting Director.
The changes signal victory for the powerful London Midland O.F.s who were much appalled that Gresley's York held sway deep in the heart of Stanier territory.
Meanwhile rumours continue of further changes at the top of the Black Tower.
Railway Eye understands that Robin Gisby is to be reinvented as Chief Operating Officer - if, of course, Coucher-Tiger-Hidden-Dragon can be prevailed upon to let loose the reins of power...
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