The Fact Compiler is grateful to a reader for sending in the picture below which was taken at St Pancras station.
The Fact Compiler fears that passengers may have to wait slightly longer than the weekend for this particular train to appear at Agincourt International
Railway Eye surveys continue to confound the so called experts and the industry chatterati.
Last week readers were invited to express their views on the recent redesign of Railways Illustrated; a subject which has excited much debate on other internet fora.
Unsurprisingly, it emerges that this debate was entirely spurious, as a massive 70% of you usually listen to Railways Illustrated on the wireless.
For those of you who haven't yet had the opportunity to hear the mag over the airwaves here is a taster of the latest issue:
A splendid result for Pip and his team.
A reader has kindly sent in these images of the Loram rail grinder in action at Crewe on the 11th November.
Perhaps an occasion for grinding of teeth rather than rails?
Just a week ago National Express alerted the media to an exciting "cook off" for the coveted title 'Chef of the Year'.
The press release burbled "The winners and runners-up from both (NXEC) heats are now preparing for the final cook off, where they will join the winning chef from National Express East Anglia".
Alas, yesterday's announcement of swinging redundancies also saw NEG admit that its East Anglia franchise is "proposing to remove the restaurant service, and improve our buffet and at-seat service".
With restaurant cars in East Anglia on the way out The Fact Compiler fears that the souffles of the NXEA chef may not rise to the occasion.
Yesterday NEG announced swinging redundancies at it's East Anglia TOC.
Time for the struggling owner group to keep its head down some might say.
Fortunately not a view shared by NEG's brave PR monkeys, who decided to proceed with last nights special sponsored run of A1 Tornado, which saw the National Express logo emblazoned on the kettle's tender!
A sight surely designed to gladden the heart of those facing the dole queue.
UPDATE: Harumph, snorts our man at 222 Marylebone Road!
"From where in National Express did the outburst of Kettle Mania come from that saw the company's logos plastered on the £3million carnot cycle prototype?"
Perhaps from the very top?
...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' ?
***LNWR sold to Arriva***
Crewe should be so lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky
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!
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.
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).
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...
***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...
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!
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.
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.
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.
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