Turncoat

From our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Has the Fact Compiler gone native?

Rail Minister Tom Harris returned from his Centre Parcs holiday and posted the following on his blog.

"Yes, we enjoy holidays in Blighty, and have spent more holiday time here than in any other part of the world. But there were no altruistic or worthy motives behind our decision. As soon as the boys are old enough and Carolyn gets over her fear of flying (or allows me to sedate her for the journey), we’ll be long-hauling somewhere sunny."

So keen was The Fact Compiler to ingratiate himself with Harris' on his return, that he posted the first response to the above, without questioning why the allegedly 'modally agnostic' Minister needed to fly, long haul, to the sun.

What's wrong with travelling by rail to France, Italy or Spain - plenty of sun there and no need to sedate Mrs Harris!

(222 - The Chunnel was on fire at the time, but point taken. Ed)

Railway Garden Competition #10

The Fact Compiler has received the following entry from a Mr Rayner of Ambergate.

It shows a truly venerable railway garden.

As Mr Rayner explains: "The tree is probably 15+ years old", so it has probably survived because:

• BR Civils were too busy being disaggregated
• Railtrack was too busy wishing it was doing something else
• and latterly NR is too busy with its face in the trough

Of particular interest are the two strengthening bars in the picture below. These must be a source of great comfort to users of the busy A6 which passes immediately beneath the bridge.

And see here the cooling dappled shade afforded to motorist and pedestrians alike traversing the Queen's highway.


Normally the The Fact Compiler would berate NR for having let this tree do significant damage to a mainline bridge that crosses a busy major road.

But perhaps NR has secret plans to construct their first totally carbon-neutral parkway station in the mighty boughs of this arboreal behemoth?

Perhaps not.

Number crunching #1

Nice work if you can get it

Go-Ahead increase in pre-tax profits - 19.1%

Increase in London Midland off peak fares - 15%

Go-Ahead carries 30 per cent of the UK's rail passengers. Mostly on commuter routes - a captive market.

Room uptop

It's party conference time and The Fact Compiler has been invited to attend a series of Network Rail and ATOC shindigs where 'Team Railway' hope to meet the political great and the good.

Not to be left behind Passenger Focus are also intending to press the flesh as they celebrate winning the concession to act as consumer champion for bus as well as rail passengers.

The Fact Compiler knows that as a government agency cash is short but surely they could do better than this?

Anthony Smith, chief executive, Passenger Focus said, “The bus gives us a perfect platform to listen to our most important stakeholders, the passengers - through consultation and research we are making sure we represent passenger priorities at the highest level”.

Looks like it's going to be pretty crowded on the top deck then!

Memory loss

The Tories are having a field day putting the boot into Gordon and Shriti's disastrous Tube privatisation.

Quick to jump on a bandwagon, and shift the blame for bad news, is the instantly forgettable Tory shadow Secretary of State for Transport who is now blaming Tube Lines' cost overrun for the likely cancellation of the Cross-River Tram.

Read the Boris Watch story here

A bit rich coming from the party which privatised British Rail, resulting in a massive increase in interfaces and costs, leading to many desperately needed network improvement schemes being shelved as too expensive.

The buck stops where?

The Fact Compiler once worked for a guv'nor who told his staff:

"Where there is success, it is your success; if there is a problem it is mine."

Perhaps a leit motif that might usefully be adopted by other senior managers in our industry!

A couple of weeks ago a "gaffe" saw the following photo appear in Rail issue 599.


In the latest issue editor Nigel Harris has the good grace to acknowledge that this might have been unwise, as it could possibly undermine Rail's splendid campaign against photo-shoots featuring models in the four foot.

So far so good and full marks to Nigel and Rail for taking reader criticism on the chin.

But what's this?

The editor's apology makes clear that he was on holiday when the picture was selected for publication and that on his return he "had a bit of a chat, here in the office."

Oh dear - it looks like some poor junior minion has received a bollocking and a very public one at that.

Hopefully he at least received 'Higher Grade Duty' payments whilst covering for his buck passing editor?

Anorak

High praise indeed.

A thread on Tory Troll says that Railway Eye is like 'Guido Fawkes in an anorak'.

Interestingly Tory Troll's masthead is a picture of David Cameron in the cab of a Freightliner class 66.

The world is indeed full of cranks.

Frankenstein sighted

Express Rail Alliance, the Bombardier & Siemens joint venture bidding to produce the IEP, has released some images of what their train might look like.

View the images here.

The Fact Compiler wonders why the train has been given a bar-code instead of a livery?

Presumably as each vehicle will cost an eye watering £3m it will make it easier to total up the cost of the fleet.

Live from St Pancras

Telegrammed by 'Brochet' at 16:00
From the vantage point of the Betjeman Arms at St Pancras it all seems pretty quiet.

Eurostar running 12 Paris and 6 Brussels returns today (extended running times).

Intending pax advised to report at normal times and they will be put on the first available service - nice!

Seems very quiet though, have most people decided not to bother?

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!