What's missing...

...from this over-excited tosh?

"Eurostar... has appointed RAPP (formerly WAVV RAPP COLLINS) to support its Pan European Customer Relationship Management, Loyalty and E-commerce programmes.

"RAPP has been appointed to the consolidated account and will be tasked with supporting Eurostar across these three core areas. Over the coming months, Eurostar will be further developing its traveller communications and refining its award winning website eurostar.com to continue to push the standards of the customer experience."

Etc... etc... yawn.

Perhaps a big fat capital 'C' ?

Poptastic!

***LNWR sold to Arriva***

Crewe should be so lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky

Float like a butterfly...

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
...answer like a weasel!

Written answers Monday, 17 November 2008, House of Lords

Lord Bradshaw (Spokesperson in the Lords, Transport; Liberal Democrat) | Hansard
Whether the 40 additional vehicles which First Great Western will receive for Paddington suburban services will be new vehicles, as stated in the Department for Transport's Rolling Stock Plan of January 2008.

Lord Adonis (Minister of State, Department for Transport; Labour)
The Government's Rolling Stock Plan of January 2008 stated that the assumed actions and numbers of vehicles were not prescriptive. The update to the plan, published in July 2008 and available on the Department for Transport website stated that different numbers would be announced only when the Government contracted with the operator for more or fewer vehicles. Discussions with First Great Western on detailed plans are in progress.

Errr.... Yes Minister.

FOI shock horror

Tom Harris has pre-empted a highly embarrassing Freedom of Information request by publishing the offending document on his own blog.

Read Tom's shock disclosure here.

12 out of 13 ain't bad!

High premia costing dear

National Express is to shed 300 rail jobs according to The Independent.

Read the Indy piece here.

Or indeed Railway Eye from October if you like your news a little earlier.

Boiled Frog

Bowker's Law says there are only two sources of railway funding - from the fare box and the tax payer.

The Public Accounts Committee have kindly provided last year's figures for these.

In 2006/07, passengers paid £5.1 billion into the fare box.

Whilst the Department for Transport gave £3.4 billion to Network Rail and a further £1.7 billion to the Train Operating Companies.

Total amount of our taxes spent on the 'privatised' railways in 2006/07 = £5.1bn

Total amount of our taxes spent on the nationalised railway in 1993/94 = £1.46bn (figure corrected for inflation).

Future in the past

Telegrammed by The Master
Inter TOC co-operation and holding connections for late services isn't always the stuff of myth, as passengers on todays 0845 Padd - Swansea have found out.

Those punters using the train to get to Fishguard anxiously scanned their watches (or admired flooded fields) as their train was held outside Bristol Parkway due to an AXC service blocking its path.

Perhaps Arriva felt guilty, as the TM on the FGW train came on the PA to apologise for the delay and announce that ATW had agreed to hold the connection and allow punters to make their train.

So, if it can be done on this occasion...

McNaughton to Balfour Beatty?

***Balfour Beatty, the international engineering, construction, services and investment Group announces the appointment of Andrew McNaughton to the new role of Chief Operating Officer and to the Board of Balfour Beatty plc. The new appointment becomes effective from 1 January 2009.***

UPDATE: The Fact Compiler is grateful to a reader for the following observation:

"The McNaughton in question joined Balfour Beatty in 1997... so it can't be the good prof - unless he's been moonlighting for the last decade!"

Shame - was looking like such a great story...

Masters and servants

FCC certainly knows how to win friends and influence people.

As Enfield North MP, Joan Ryan, discovered when she handed out leaflets at Enfield Chase station, encouraging passengers to complain to FCC about a lack of ticket issuing facilities.

So enraged was the sweary-sounding-franchise that it threatened to charge the MP for processing any resulting complaints!

But wait a minute, perhaps such an arrangement might prove beneficial to hard pressed tax payers.

Were FCC to charge Ms Ryan for processing any complaints resulting from her leafleting campaign, then it would only be fair for Ms Ryan to charge FCC for handling the not inconsiderable number of complaints her office receives about their services.

In 2006 Joan Ryan MP claimed expenses and allowances of £173,691 - making her the third most expensive MP in Parliament.

Bring it on FCC!

I'm alright Martin!

Telegrammed by our Poor-industrial Relations correspondent
Much anger at the NRM after it was revealed that National Museums of Science and Industry head man, Martin Earwicker, was awarded a £15K pay rise last year.

This is proving a very bitter pill for the keepers of our rail heritage in York to swallow, coming as it does at a time of belt tightening and financial uncertainty at the National Railway Museum.

With staff pay awards in recent years falling well below the inflation rate there have been repeated threats of strikes and other industrial action by public service unions PCS and Prospect.

To quote a popular ditty 'There may be troubles ahead...'

Crossrail new chairman

So Terry Morgan will be the new chairman of Crossrail.

Morgan, currently boss of Tube Lines, will start work in November next year, according to a story filed by Dan Milmo last Thursday.

But what's this?

There is still no mention of this key non-executive appointment on the Crossrail website.

Perhaps unsurprising therefore, that none of the Sunday's could be bothered with the story either.

A multitude of sins

One of the delights of summer is the traditional Railway Garden.

Alas, with winter upon us Mother Nature is in retreat, revealing a multitude of sins previously obscured by the Railway Garden.



Above is the delightful vista that welcomed passengers awaiting trains from Crewe's platform 4 on Friday.

FT does TT

***An interesting piece on German Timetable planning***

Black tie or 'tuxedo'?

The Fact Compiler prefers black tie.



Mind you, wearing one doesn't automatically make one a gentleman.

Drop light on the world

Another example of the law of unintended consequences.

On the 11th June 2003 a drunken student fell between the gap in the platform and a Silverlink train at Gunnersbury station.

Despite attempts by onlookers to alert the guard the train moved off, resulting in the student being dragged under the train.

As a consequence he lost fingers from his left hand and his left leg had to be amputated.

The High Court ruled this week that Silverlink must bear an equal responsibility for the accident, despite the student exhibiting "foolhardy behaviour".

Therefore, the student has been granted the right to claim a six-figure sum in compensation.

So far so reasonable.

Judge John Reddihough also ruled that the guard should have had an “openable” window in their carriage, to allow them to monitor platforms right up to the moment of departure.

The Fact Compiler wonders whether this judgement now makes such modifications mandatory? And if so whether the ROSCOs will be willing to pick up the bill, especially for MOLA fleets which DafT already claims are overpriced.

For you Timmy, the journey is over!

What is it with Germans and trains?

Children ordered off trains.

Put them in a uniform...

Curse of Capt Deltic

Bad news for wheel barrow manufacturers.

According to today's Times the Tories will give the ORR powers to veto or amend NR Directors' bonuses following "serious failure".

The Tories also plan to get shot of the majority of Public Interest Members - who have proven completely useless at holding the company to account.

Railway Eye readers will recollect the national fury that greeted the announcement earlier this year that NR's three executive directors would trouser £1.2m in bonuses between them; this despite the company being fined a record £14m by ORR for Christmastide engineering overruns.

The new scrutiny body will number 20 (down from 106) and will have additional powers to hold NR to account.

The Fact Compiler is confused. If Network Rail is a private company then surely the Tories cannot change the company's corporate governance, unless they nationalise it first. If they don't need to nationalise it, then it must already be under state control, in which case it can't be a private company.

He shoots they score

Is the Virgin media machine losing it's legendary PR prowess?

Only yesterday Railway Eye reported that a couple had been caught in most unfortunate circumstances aboard a Pendolino.

Today's media is full of scare stories about a major national shortage.

Surely Beardie Rail won't look this gift horse in the mouth.

Entente cordiale

An RMT press release announces that the brothers are off to France tomorrow.

The union has organised a Eurostar train to Paris so that members can demonstrate against the privatisation of Europe's rail networks.

The Fact Compiler assumes that Privs won't be valid on RMT's Eurostar either.

Silly money

Oh dear. Network Rail is at it again.

The Borderlands line connects Bidston to Wrexham, a distance of 27 miles.

Merseytravel and local user groups are keen to see the line electrified to link up Deeside with Liverpool.

Merseytravel consultants have costed the job at £66m.

Alas, Network Rail has quoted a price of £207m, to predictable local fury.

A spokesman for Network Rail said: “Merseytravel is well aware that the methodology used in the first two reports on this project were flawed.

“They did not take into account everything that needed to considered.”

The Fact Compiler can only assume that Merseytravel omitted to consider NR 'Bonus Trough Weighting'?

UPDATE: An 'anonymous' reader has contacted The Fact Compiler.

He writes:

"Oh dear - more factual inaccuracy and misplaced vitriol from Railway Eye - what a suprise!

"The things that Merseytravel missed that caused the price to increase were small things like:

• The new stations required
• The platform lengthenings needed
• Getting up from behind the desk and basing a quote on on-site surveys
• Updating increases in raw materials costs since three years ago (when the desktop study was done)

"A few small things then!"

The Fact Compiler hopes Merseytravel and WAG understands.