Whither ED?

So Metronet staff are finally to transfer over to London Underground in December.

And not before time.

The amount of duplication and man marking that has taken place within London Underground, as it sought to rein in the errant contractor, grew to epic proportions before Metronet collapsed.

And still the swollen headcount remains.

First in Tim O'Toole's sights must be LU's bloated Engineering Directorate.

In the heady days of Shadow Running it numbered a mere 16 people, now over 400 are on it's books; most of whom are too busy peering over the shoulders of their now in-house infraco colleagues to add a shred of value to the business.

Whilst the omens aren't looking good for the massed ranks of paper pushers in ED, the future of LU's Engineering Director, David Waboso, looks much more rosy.

Waboso, a former SRA man, has been lobbying hard to take on the Metronet top job since the infraco was nationalised in May this year.

With current MD Andie Harper, and most of his team, coming to the end of their interim contracts can it be long before Waboso and his trusted lieutenants fulfill their dreams and Metronet posts?

I'm on the train

C2C is planning to invest in mobile phone busting technology.

Read the London Paper story here.

Not a future expense that needs worry EMT, whose Meridians render the term 'mobile communications' meaningless.

Gare de l'eau

TGV service delayed for two hours!

BBC report here.

The gentleman involved is reported to be unharmed, although looking a little flushed.

Porterbrook flogged

***Porterbrook Leasing Company Limited has announced that a consortium of investors including Antin Infrastructure Partners (the BNP Paribas sponsored infrastructure fund), Deutsche Bank and Lloyds TSB has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of the Company from Abbey National.

Completion of the purchase is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to take place before the end of 2008.***

Sources at the Rosco deny that Deutsche Bank's interest has anything to do with Porterbrook's 'DE1' postcode.

UPDATE: The Deutsche Bank led consortium will pay £1.4bn for the Rosco - the same price Abbey paid to Stagecoach when it acquired Porterbrook in 2000

Shoots foot

Oh dear - the Tories grand plan to replace additional runways at Heathrow with a new High Speed line is already coming off the rails.

According to today's Financial Times several speakers at last week's Integrating High-Speed Rail conference poured scorn on the plans.

Not least because BAA revealed that only 'three per cent of the 480,000 annual take-offs and landings at Heathrow were for flights to, or from, Leeds or Manchester', with none at all for Birmingham.

Who on earth is advising Teresa Villiers? (Answer here)

Cus-tomer

Telegrammed by The Master
No doubt people waiting further up the line will be tut-tutting the late running of this morning's 10:21 FGW Paddington to Oxford service.

However passengers aboard were treated to the full story of why it ground to a halt on leaving Reading.

A weary Train Manager came on the PA to explain that the delay was due to a passenger trying to access the train whilst it was moving.

Staff then had to secure the door only to have their efforts undone when the self same passenger tried to exit the train on realising it was going in the wrong direction!

Railway Eye tip for ministers: Keep increasing fares, drive away passengers and we'll have a near perfect PPM.

Foreign Rail

***Porterbrook, according to the Sunday Times, is to be sold to Deutsche Bank***

Read the Sunday Times business section article here.

British Rail: fragmented by the Tories, exiled under Labour.

The last shall be...

Telegrammed by The Master
The revision of the ATOC guidelines on enthusiasts appears to have hit a stumbling block.

Regular readers of Railway Eye will recollect that ATOC circulated revised draft guidelines on photography at stations to the industry several months ago.

These are inline with Ian Johnstone, Chief Constable of the BTP, claiming that enthusiasts are additional eyes and ears on the network.

Alas, it appears that one of the TOC owning groups has decided to be difficult and break ranks .

Unless sanity (and diplomacy) prevails we may yet see camera-wielding enthusiasts being frog-marched off sizeable chunks of the rail network in the future.

Such an unedifying spectacle would be a massive PR blunder causing the industry acres of hostile media coverage.

Railway Eye hopes that this can be resolved by wiser and more senior heads first?

Shoots from the hip

Adrian Shooter, Chairman of DB owned Laing Rail, is not backward in coming forward.

Thus in today's Transit we read:

"From day one I've been on the IEP group... I told (DafT Civil Serpent) Mark Lambirth that the whole thing was ridiculous - a stupid way to procure a train."

So far so good.

But then it emerges that Shooter no longer attends the meetings.

And furthermore, that he is an 'informal advisor' to Tory shadow Transport SofS, Teresa Villiers.

Adrian - are you surprised no one in DafT is listening?

Missing the point

The proposed re-opening of the Leamside line is apparently exciting much agitation amongst local residents.

According to the Sunderland Echo a Mr James Lewis of Fatfield, Washington, claims that more than 90 per cent of people would prefer the line to be ripped up and the land put to other use.

Apparently the line is also regularly targeted by vandals who set fire to the sleepers and thieves who took the metal for scrap.

Mr Lewis said: "It is used as a dumping ground and people are afraid to walk along it because of drunken youths and underage drinkers."

Well Mr Lewis, as it's a railway line perhaps that's a good thing.

Ambulance chasers

Passenger Focus today responded to the publication of RAIB's report into Grayrigg.

Anthony Smith, chief executive, Passenger Focus said: “Passenger Focus will speak up for all rail passengers at whatever inquests or enquiries follow this report and will ensure the right questions are asked on behalf of passengers”.

Oh goody. More grandstanding from civil servants.

Wrong Times

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road

It's good to see Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent of The Times, has returned from his sabbatical.

Woester is on top form with a story today about 'Passengers at risk' from track design flaw linked to the Grayrigg derailment.

According to Ben 'A design flaw found in thousands of places on the country’s rail network is putting passengers at risk of a catastrophic derailment similar to the Potters Bar and Grayrigg disasters, according to a secret analysis by rail safety inspectors'.

So what level of risk is the Woester getting het-up about?

The risk of being killed in a train accident is around 2 per billion passenger journeys.

And one estimate puts the number of trains that have passed safely over points with fixed stretcher bars, (the type of point at Grayrigg) at 3.6 trillion.

Since each train represented multiple journeys the passenger risk of being killed because of points failure is even smaller.

Still never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

So Ben if you're reading this stop here.

What Network Rail have been asked to do is provide a 21st Century proof of safety analysis of this particular points design to prove that it is er... safe.

When an internationally renowned railway engineering consultancy was asked to look at this they were baffled, pointing out that no railway has ever tried to demonstrate the safety of a 50 year old design.

This is of course, a scandal.

How can we be sure that mechanical interlockings, a Victorian concept, for heaven's sake, are safe?

Over to you Ben. 'How about 'Preserved railways signalling safety scare'?

Round the Hoon #1

'How bona it was to vada Mr Hoon's dolly old eek again'...

...in tonight's Nottingham Evening Post:

"I take a close and deep personal interest in the Midland Mainline as a regular user of that line and I certainly share my predecessor's enthusiasm for electrification.

"It is something that the department will be looking at, I assure him, very closely."

Stop messin' about!

SUBTLE!!!!!

National Express has kindly clarified the industry's view of the Department for Transport.

This from NatEx's response to the competition commission findings:

National Express comment:
"The TfL model involves, effectively, TfL procuring the rolling stock and making it available to its concessionaire.The equivalent of this would be that the DfT would procure the trains and make them available to franchisees. This is the approach being adopted for the IEP and Thameslink fleets.

"However, our close involvement in the IEP procurement has indicated that the DfT may not be the best organisation to specify such vehicles and a more market sensitive approach might have been achieved by having a train operator prepare the specification."

The Fact Compiler has a suspicion that 'Sir' Richard Bowker gets on well with 'Dr' Mike Mitchell.

Shock and awe

Unbelievable!

Lord Bradshaw asked Her Majesty's Government: "Further to the Written Answers by Lord Bassam of Brighton on 29 September, whether they direct the hire or use of rolling stock fleets?"

The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Adonis): "In the normal course of events the Department for Transport does not direct the hire or use of rolling stock fleets."

To paraphrase the 42nd President of the United States: "In the normal course of events I did not have sexual relations with that woman"

Steaming

Alas all is not well in Kettle-land.

There is much huffing, puffing and wheel spin amongst the clinker cognoscenti about recent media coverage of the 40th anniversary of the demise of UK mainline steam.

Chief complaint amongst the kettle-kranks appears to be the Beeb's use of Steam Railway editor and 'callow youth' Danny Hopkins to comment on the event.

But wait a minute!

Prof Stephen Hawkins often comments on the formation of our universe, and he wasn't there either!

How we once lived

A reader has contacted The Fact Compiler to share the following Hull Trains press release dated from 1999.

The press release reads "Three African women arrived at the Paragon Interchange on Hull Trains this week to attend the launch of a photographic exhibition featuring their work."

Alas, these ladies and their cameras would not receive such a warm welcome in Hull today as, according to our correspondent, it has one of the "top 5 anti-photographer stations on the English network".

He continues "When ATOC provides details of anticipated changes to the enthusiast guidelines (when is the operative word as they have had the consultations for 3 months) then maybe the industry will finally sing from the same hymn sheet about photography on stations".

Indeed!

What's in a name?

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
We understand there was consternation at New Minster House when Lord Adonis rolled up after the recent reshuffle asking for directions to his office.

Apparently when discussing his new team with the PM, Geoff Hoon said that the department really needed someone who knew about railways.

Hoon, as a great admirer of the musicals of Andrew Lloyd-Webber, had been particularly impressed by the grasp of traction technology displayed by the musical lord in 'Starlight Express'.

'Could I have that bloke in the Lords, Andrew Whats-is-name, he seems to know his trains' he asked?

Since our Calvinist PM would have nothing to do with anything as frivolous as musicals he appointed the only Andrew in the Lords he knew.

This may, of course, be idle gossip without a foundation or truth; but it sort of rings true...

Sheffield steal

The gating of Sheffield station footbridge is causing Stagecoach franchise, East Midlands Trains, no end of trouble.

The installation of automatic ticket gates, originally a franchise commitment, is defended by Stagecoach on the grounds of revenue protection and reducing anti-social behaviour.

Meanwhile, the local burghers of Sheffield are up in arms as EMT's gating proposals will prevent pedestrians using a well established walkway linking the city centre with the large estates of Norfolk Park and Park Hill, as well as the station's tram stop (prop. Stagecoach).

In an attempt to defuse the row EMT proposes allowing "every person associated with Sheffield to register for a free smartcard which will allow access across the station".

A further concession will allow mobility impaired people access without restriction.

A reasonable compromise perhaps.

However, each smartcard will be issued against an address allowing EMT to "easily spot and tackle fraudsters".

Is The Fact Compiler alone in worrying about commerical operation Stagecoach creating a vast database of Sheffield citizens and recording their movements across the City?

Less is less

Telegrammed by The Master
One has to wonder who the bright spark is at VWC who thought that replacing all the quiet coach stickers with far fewer, smaller ones was actually a good idea.

Trying to get some antisocial cretins to take heed was bad enough before - now that you need a magnifying glass to read them and a map to find them it's bound to cause even more friction.

Perhaps it's a cunning plan to ensure that quiet coaches are abandoned all together?