Finally...

EUROSTAR STATEMENT

12 September 2008 – 16.30 (UK time) update

Due to the incident involving a Eurotunnel shuttle train in the Channel Tunnel on Thursday 11 September, Eurostar is unable to operate any services today, Friday 12 September.

Until Eurotunnel and the emergency services have undertaken their assessment of the incident, Eurostar is unable to say when services will resume.

Eurostar must await permission from Eurotunnel before it is able to re-start operations.

Once the single tunnel that is unaffected by the fire is re-opened, Eurostar hopes to begin a limited service with longer journey times.

Eurostar is therefore advising all travellers who hold Eurostar tickets for today, Saturday 13 September and Sunday 14 September that they should seek alternative means of making their journeys.

Travellers holding tickets for travel today, Saturday and Sunday are also able to exchange their tickets for travel at a later date, or get a full refund.

Eurostar will issue a further update when more information becomes available.

-ends-

Somewhat disingenuously Eurostar claims this is an "update".

The last press release from the company was on Wednesday afternoon and concerned bikes on trains!

Pure merde

Three hundred British and French firemen took 16 hours to extinguish the fire that started in the southbound Channel Tunnel yesterday.

So fierce was the conflagration that at times temperatures reached 1,830 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius).

As a consequence it is unlikely that even a limited service will recommence until Sunday, at the very earliest.

Meanwhile the Eurotunnel chairman Jacques Gounon was telling listeners to French radio station RTL yesterday that some traffic could resume on Friday.

The Fact Compiler doesn't know which he preferred - Eurostar's silence (see previous posts) or Eurotunnel's bullshit.

Either way both companies proved utterly incapable of communicating the facts to intending passengers.

A lot less Franks

***Transit reports that David Franks is to start surrendering operational control of National Express East Coast to deputy Susan Goldsmith, but he denies he's leaving the flagship TOC.***

Read the Transit article here

Get a grip

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it - and how!

Eurotunnel's Richard (carbon footprint) Brown is a hot shot when it comes to saving the planet, but care of customers clearly takes less of his attention than saving the three toed Patagonian Newt.

Not only was there nothing about the Channel Tunnel fire on the Eurostar website two hours after Railway Eye was alerted, but as this quote reveals they didn't know how serious the situation was three hours after that.

"We checked the website around 9pm," said finance manager Kirsty McIntyre, who had planned to spend the weekend in the Champagne region.

"It just said delays are expected but it didn't say anything about cancelled services, so we came today and it's not happening. We are going to see if we can get a bus to Dover and a ferry to Calais."

Surely there must be a communications plan somewhere, based on what happened last time?

Back to the drawing board

Telegrammed by our independent expert
Nothing does more to expose the ignorance of national newspaper hacks about railways than the products of their picture desks or graphics departments.

Today's Telegraph graphic of the Channel Tunnel fire shows a train of lorries being hauled by the driving cab of a Eurostar Class 373!

You see where they get their bad habits from. A couple of weeks ago they ran a news story about fuel saving measures on the "locomotives" of Trans-Pennine Class 185 Desiros.

Shame on Transport Editor, David Millward.

Continent cut off!

Chaos today when a burning Chunnel freight shuttle brought international rail travel between Britain and abroad to a complete stand.

With passengers unhurt the greatest damage done was to Eurostar's reputation for slick media management.

1. According to the BBC the fire started at around 15:00.

2. TfL were only able to brief international passengers travelling to St Pancras & Stratford at 16:12

3. As at 17:58 there was still no information about the fire and disruption on the Eurostar website.

Sweet irony - on the day that Eurostar should have been welcoming the international railway community to London for the 10th UIC conference on Sustainability and the Environment many attendees were left stranded and with no clue on how to travel due to Eurostar's piss-poor communications.

Time for Eurostar to rethink its corporate comms?

Charidee

Railway Eye has been contacted by The Transport Benevolent Fund asking for help recruiting a full time organizer.

The Fact Compiler is delighted to help - details below.

The Transport Benevolent Fund is a registered charity with about 25,000 members who pay subs of just £1 a week.

Nearly 200 new members are recruited on-site every week by seven home-based salaried organizers.

The salary for a full-time organizer is around £24,000 pa with all reasonable expenses met.

TBF is looking for two more organizers - one to cover Scotland, the other railway companies in England. It may be possible to convert the latter post to two part-timers based in different parts of England.

No age limit: may suit someone who has recently retired from the railway.

Good interpersonal skills a must.

Involvement in voluntary organizations (eg trades unions) a definite bonus.

Speak in confidence to the TBF Director, Chris Godbold on 07774 210933.

Please remember to mention Railway Eye if applying for these posts.

Whimsey

Telegrammed by our man in 222 Marylebone Road.
Switching on the CERN Collider yesterday seems to have momentarily opened a wormhole into a parallel universe.

Railway hacks have been inundated by invitations from British Rail Chairman Sir John Prideaux to October's formal opening, by HM the Queen, of the newly electrified Great Western Main Line.

In other news Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed it was "piffle" that his government had plans to close the Berne gauge Grand Central line linking Manchester and Paris.

Those whom the gods seek to destroy...

In the privatised railway of today companies come and go.

Who now remembers the former FM or Mainline Rail?

Hopefully not many, as the individuals behind them now run 'Nemesis Rail'.

As ever, attention to detail and quality are the hallmarks of their operation as can be witnessed by the slick piece of branding to be found on their workshop fire door.

Hopefully maligning the goddess by misspelling her name won't result in any self inflicted acts of retributive justice.

Lifted

Telegrammed by The Master
Railway Eye readers may remember that Ruth Kelly was subject to much ridicule when she told the Transport Select Committee that her department had safeguarded the route of a non-existent closed railway between London and Birmingham.

Well we may owe the Secretary of State an apology as it's obviously an easy mistake to make!

After all, even those fonts of all railway knowledge (trainspotters) get it wrong sometimes.

Hence this interesting interpretation of the news that has appeared on a railway forum with the rather appropriate name of Going Loco:

Chiltern Railways have announced a 200million scheme to reopen the line from High Wycombe to Oxford, which has been shut since 1964. A Transport & Works Act application will soon be made to move the scheme forward, with Chiltern Railways taking the lead in developing the project. Chiltern say that this will be their priority following the completion of Aylesbury Vale Parkway.

The ambition would be achieved by linking the Chiltern line to Bicester Town station, from where trains could continue through to Oxford. This would give Bicester new links both to Oxford and London, as well as providing further travel opportunities between Oxford and London, to compete with First Great Western

The link in question is a brand- new chord at Bicester which has never been shut because it's never been open!

Perhaps a career at DafT beckons...

Busted flush

After Metronet went bust it couldn't be long before the wheels fell off Tube Lines as well.

Today they have - see BBC piece here.

One piece of good news.

Metronet overspent by £2bn, Tube Lines by a mere £1.4bn

And the name of the two dullards behind the disastrous PPP scam?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Lady Shriti Vadera. Hang your heads in shame!

Diamond ring

An amusing story in the "Grumpy Old Man" section of the latest issue of Today's Railways.

The 9th August edition of 'Branch Line News', the The Branch Line Society newsletter, erroneously reported that the editor of Railways Illustrated was "Dumbo".

For the avoidance of doubt Mr Pip Dunn is the one who can't fly.

Shropshire ghosts

The Fact Compiler received an email yesterday from Keith Barrow, Associate Editor of the IRJ.

Keith wrote to point out the following story on the Ludlow and Tenbury Wells Advertiser website:

A49 closed after lightning strikes rail crossing
10:40am Monday 8th September 2008

THE A49 near Ludlow has been closed after a level crossing was struck by lightning. The road near Onibury has been closed in both directions between the A4113 and the B4368.

The Highways Agency confirmed that signals at the crossing had been damaged and that Railtrack is carrying out repairs.

Good to see that the Highways Agency can correctly name the other government agency (sorry private company) that it has multiple safety interfaces with.

Railway Garden Competition #9

The inhabitants of God's own county are renowned for being careful with the pennies.

Notwithstanding this Sheffield station staff have managed to put on a splendid display without incurring the costs of the usual hanging baskets.

The Fact Compiler is particularly impressed with this ensemble - complementing as it does the station which was recently refurbished at vast expense.

Saint Augustine refers

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
To judge by the following passage from NR’s response to the ORR draft determination, the Director's bonuses are working as advertised.

'Network Rail has always recognised that an element of judgement is required in reaching a view on these matters and that our targets should be reasonably challenging’.

Perhaps they should have added “but not so demanding that we risk losing our incentive payments”.

As St Augustine said 'Lord make me chaste but not yet.'

100% safe

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Safety - what inconveniences are imposed in your name!

Only 13 lines into the Executive Summary of Network Rail's 400 page demand for more money with thinly veiled threats the dread phrase 'Safety remains our over-riding priority' appears.

If this were really the case Network Rail would prevent trains from running past high output machinery on adjacent lines while work was in progress, thus causing massive inconvenience to passengers and inflating costs of mega projects like the West Coast Route Modernisation.

Thank goodness that Iain Coucher and his board know that safety and economy have to be balanced and that a risk-free railway has infinite reliability and zero maintenance costs.

Because nothing moves.

Virgin avoids Labour pain

Telegrammed by our independent expert
What is it about Virgin and the Labour big boys?

Today, as the cabinet decamped by pendolino to Birmingham for their first meeting outside London since the days of Lloyd George, the Virgin website broke down and the faithful following in their wake were unable to book tickets.

Beardie will not have forgotten the notorious encounter with Labour bigwigs in 1998, when the train carrying them to the party conference in Blackpool was severely delayed and he had to endure a humiliating dressing down by John Prescott from the conference platform.

Mind you in those dim and distant days the brothers and sisters went to cheer Mr Tony.

Today, with Gordon's popularity at an all time low, party managers were absolutely delighted that the smelly-socks couldn't make it.

How long until Beardie gets the 2014 franchise extension he's been lobbying so hard for?

Conundrum

Why are these to be found in the vestibules of Class 455s but not on the platforms of the stations they serve?


The Fact Compiler apologises to SWT if the 'Securitate' now demand they be removed.

Glad I asked

The Fact Compiler would like to thank those readers of the Railway Eye who took the time to vote for their favourite term of abuse for the IEP.

Readers were invited to select one of the options below:
1. The Camel Class
2. The Frankenstein Train
3. Neither of the above.

As The Fact Compiler is new to these sort of ballots he has asked well known unionist Crow Bar to assist with the collation and announcement of the results.

Just over 2,500 people visit Railway Eye each month. Of which just 50 voted in the poll.

However, Crow Bar advises that these figures are unimportant and may in fact be numeracist, so probably best forgotten about.

Therefore those results in full. Crow Bar, if you would...

"Greetings comrades. A massive 64% of you voted unambiguously for the Frankenstein Train, totally and utterly vindicating our position on this piece of nomenclature and once again reminding the exploitative private sector management classes that our members will not lie down and accept anything less than the full term of abuse when referring to the IEP. Furthermore I put management on notice that attempts to divide my membership by waving Camel Class inducements or embellishments will be perceived as a direct assault on agreed machinery and will result in a dispute situation existing between ourselves and..."

Continued p94...

Smoking

US railroad company Iowa Pacific Holdings has bought RMS Locotech, the last remnant of ECT's unsuccessful foray into railways.

According to the ECT website the new company is to be called 'British American Railway Services Ltd'.

A sort of cross between EWS and British American Tobacco.