Pre-Budget Report and the railway

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
According to Alastair Darling's 2008 Pre-Budget Report today: "Up to 200 new rail carriages will be delivered earlier."

Since the egregious 'Rolling Stock Puzzle' does not contain a timetable for the delivery of any the 1300 (sic) new vehicles in the High Level Output Specification, how can vehicles be delivered earlier?

Elsewhere in the Report it says that there will be '£300 million to accelerate the delivery of up to 200 new carriages to expand capacity on the rail network'.

How can DafT accelerate delivery?

Only by placing orders in its own right before negotiations to changes in Franchise Agreements are concluded.

Which means telling TOCs, 'You're going to have these Electrostars we've bought as a job lot when they are delivered'.

This is an admirably sensible approach - which is why we don't think it is what the Pre-Budget Report means.

And that 'up-to 200' sounds distinctly fishy.

The only additional vehicles remotely capable of being 'accelerated ' are the 30 four car EMUs for NXEA and the 42 - oops 24 - extra DMU vehicles for TransPennine.

Predictably the running dog lackeys at ATOC welcomed this meaningless commitment.

UPDATE: Tom from Blairwatch writes:

"It did occur to me that since there's only one place you can build trains in the country, and it's full of people building trains, what was the point? If you ordered 200 Electrostar vehicles the delivery date would pattern-match 201x anyway - they've got those South African Electrostars, the Class 378s for Boris, the 2009TS for Boris and the 'S' stock for Boris to build first. My goodness, Boris is getting a big new trainset, isn't he?

"What might be fun is to engage in stimulus trading with the Germans. For instance, we could start by buying a job lot of off-the-peg Desiros (beefing up the Class 450 fleet would be favourite, guys), in return for the German police buying an equal cost in Jaguars, or something.

"Alternatively put some cash into refurbishing and life-extending the Class 150 fleet."

UPDATE: Sim Harris writes...

"That makes Bombardier sound too busy to take on any more, but not so.

"There is capacity for 8 lines at Litchurch Lane and only 5 are in use (not at all bad, but that still leaves 3). Gautrain is nearly complete, too.

"Bring the work on!"

Longrider rides out

"“non!”"

Pre-Budget Report and the environment

Wolmar also gives a thumbs down to the Pre-Budget Report, on environmental grounds.

Read Christian's piece here.

It looks like the Chancellor is struggling to win support.

As Ali D might say: "Is it because I is in the black?".

Unholy Trinity

A splenetic press release reaches Railway Eye from campaign group TrainSardine.

They write:

"Angry passengers have launched a fight back campaign against East Midlands Trains by sending tinned sardines to rail boss Tim Shoveller. The campaign is in protest at the poor service provided on the troubled Liverpool to Norwich line."

Alas, such is the campaign group's ire that they manage to misspell the address of their own website:

"The TrainSadrine.org also launched its website, a newsletter and revealed a poster." (pictured below).

As DafT's celebrated Rolling Stock plan only allows EMT three new vehicles, perhaps TrainsSadrine would be better focusing their anger at Messrs Hoon, Adonis and Mitchell.

Wonders of modern medicine

Good news from Captain Deltic!

In today's Informed Sources ePreview the good Captain shares the results of a recent visit to the doctor:

"Meanwhile, thanks for all your good wishes ahead of last month’s internal exam. The colonoscopy showed every thing to be normal."

To paraphrase Evelyn Waugh on Randolph Churchill: "It was a triumph of modern science to find the only part of Roger that wasn't indignant!".

Wolmarvision HD

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
No expense has been spared in this super colossal production!

Fire and Steam includes the recreation of the building of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway complete with toiling navvies, bowler hatted ganger and topper wearing engineer.

Sadly, none of these are moving and the rostrum shot is one of several taken from that fount of all railway wisdom: "The story of railways" (a Ladybird achievements book).

Alas, this excellent publication failed to survive our passion for dumbing down. A search on the Ladybird Books web site brought the following response:

"Sorry, your search for Railways has not returned any results."

Perhaps Team Railway should invest in our future and help Ladybird to fill the gap?

Gordon is a moron

Splendid news. The Prime Minister shares passenger outrage over fares increases.

This extra-ordinary statement was quoted in Saturday's Daily Telegraph:

'A spokesman for Gordon Brown said "It is clear that passengers have concerns about the value for money they receive from train companies. It is a matter for the rail companies to explain why they have made the decisions they have made".'

The Fact Compiler is speechless.

UPDATE: The Fact Compiler is grateful to a distinguished Railway Eye reader for the following:

"The tragedy of much government mishandling of the industry is that no-one - including Atoc, which is meant to be their industry association, for goodness' sake - is willing to make a fuss about it.

"First got plenty of stuff wrong on Great Western but they also took flak that should rightly have gone to the government for the reassignment of the Class 158s to areas that just happen to have lots of Labour MPs.

To quote (in expurgated fashion) Bunk, the coolest detective in cult TV series The Wire, "Sometimes it makes me sick how far we done fell."

Quite so.

A pedant writes

Railway Eye was delighted to receive an invitation to Balfour Beatty's 100th anniversary bash.

It has a picture designed to illustrate the company's involvement in the electrification of the West Coast Main Line captioned "1969".

Alas, BB decided to use a photo of a Class 87 locomotive to illustrate the piece.

As any fule kno these mainstays of the West Coast Main Line weren't introduced until 1973.

Such lack of attention to detail will come as a surprise to many in the industry.

Bah humbug

Festive cheer!

Network Rail stations have entered into the Christmas spirit!

Here's to January's New Year Grandmother sale.

Crisis, what crisis?

Telegrammed by The Master
Anyone travelling through Kings Cross on Saturday morning could be forgiven for thinking 'crisis, what crisis?'

There certainly seemed to be no sign of passenger numbers slackening in the wake of the economic downturn.

NXEC departures were rammed, with a mid morning Glasgow service full and standing.

Arrivals were equally busy, including Grand Central's first train of the day.

No doubt the cheeky decision by all three Open Access Operators to freeze fares in 2009 will continue this trend.

Wolmarvision

Is Christian Wolmar in danger of becoming a national icon?

Wolmar's book Fire and Steam has been transferred to DVD in time for Christmas.



Does the Fact Compiler detect a faint whiff of arch-crank and poet laureate Sir John Betjeman in Wolmar's agreeable cadences?

Fat head

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

Sense and sensibility

Is My Lord Adonis a good or bad thing?

Does he know his stuff or is he talking through his coronet?

You picks your commentator, you takes your choice.

For instance Nigel Harris made the following observation in a blog posting on Monday:
"What most of these commentators missed – or got completely wrong – was Andrew Adonis’ deep and detailed interest in railways. He comes to the transport job with an existing knowledge and support for rail which is going to be intriguing to watch."

Intrigued, we watched.

And lo it came to pass, a mere three days later, that Lord Adonis made clear his existing knowledge and support for rail:

Lord Adonis, House of Lords, Thursday 20th November (Hansard source)
"However, a perfectly sensible report was published, commissioned, I think, by the Department of Transport and possibly British Rail. This was the Serpell report, although it, too, proposed options that could have led to significant network cutbacks in the 1980s."

Presumably his Lordship means sensible in the sense that Raymond Ian Burns might understand it?

Silver lining

Telegrammed by The Raver

Which senior LUL director was overheard saying that Metronet's collapse was a blessing in disguise?

The reasoning from the 7th floor of 55 Broadway is that Crossrail would have been almost impossible to build due to the over complicated PPP contracts.

These would have provided greedy private sector Metronet with infinite opportunities to hoover up vast sums of public money in frustrated access compensation claims.

Presumably Tube Lines, under Terry Morgan's direction, will be taking a more pragmatic approach; unsurprising as the wily poacher will turn gamekeeper at Crossrail in 12 months time.

70% listen on the wireless

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.

Divergence of opinion

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?

Timing 2

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.

Timing

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?

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