Pause for thought

***This from His Grace Archbishop Cranmer on the death of Jade Goody"

Follow that cab!

Telegrammed by Our Independent Expert
Does the cab trade know something we don't?

Taxi drivers plying Preston railway station have reproduced images of the new IEP train on their business cards.

Railway hands with long memories will recall there's a great tradition of train-making in the city - with the prototype Deltic being built in English Electric's Strand Road works.

Perhaps this explains the Hitachi poster on show at Railtex earlier this month...

"Proudly made in Britain!"

Is this perhaps stretching the Trades Description Act a little too far?

MacInsider Trading?

This from the Scotsman...

Transport Scotland's former chief executive Dr Malcolm Reed told the Scottish Parliament in January that his finance chief Guy Houston, a shareholder with FirstGroup, had only taken part in two meetings "after the deal had been struck" on the contract to run ScotRail.

But the agency has now admitted that Houston actually attended several other internal meetings at Transport Scotland when the decision over the lucrative ScotRail contract was still being discussed.

Last week, it emerged that when Transport Scotland was discussing the deal with the firm, Houston was increasing his shareholding.

Perhaps there is a chapter devoted to this disgraceful affair in Moir's lovely book?

Moorgate closure benefits Railway Children

The Fact Compiler raises his bowler to FCC's Elaine Holt and Roger Perkins.

Who were both out yesterday evening, rattling the collection pot for the Railway Children, as the last Thameslink service left Moorgate.


A nice piece of PR that means even The Fact Compiler is struggling to find fault.

Time for a nice lie down in a darkened room to recharge the vitriol levels.

DafT treats regionals with contempt

Two DafT press releases.

Both issued yesterday (Friday).

The first received at 14:50, the second at 23:30.

14:50 Rail passengers are set to benefit from a project costing more than £50 million to redouble one of the worst performing routes on the Cotswold Line, Transport Minister Andrew Adonis said today.

23:30 Rail passengers are set to benefit from a project costing more than £50 million to double parts of the Cotswold Line, from a single track service to two lines, Transport Minister Andrew Adonis said today.

Using your skill and judgment can you guess how many of today's newspapers were able to amend their copy in time?

Crossrail news from Franchise Frankie

Telegrammed by Franchise Frankie
Seen the stuff in NCE?

Didn't have it all but looks like we're in for a US Double on project delivery on Crossrail - CH have secured programme partner and Doug O is recommending Bechtel for pdp according to our little friend in the CLRL bunker, so looking at platoons of US execs for both roles flying backwards and forwards with the rest swept up from the growing ranks of offloaded project managers coming out of stopped jobs all over the place.

What's ridiculous is that he goes for this but there will be nothing for new talent and nothing coming out of it how many jobs did they create on the jubilee?

Boris has left him in the swamp re boris island and hoon will not save him.

Could end up messy because you can bet Rob will have another look at it next month and to be honest we're all waiting for him to come in and give it a bit of direction as is PH. no love lost there.

Give me a call if you are in tfl vicinity next week

UPDATE: This from Paul...

Keep an eye on the NCE's newly revamped website.

"NCE for unrivalled engineering disaster coverage."

It is even funnier when you see that the Transcend story is just below it.

All together now...

Telegrammed by Alfred J Prufrock
Question: What is the book life of trains?
Answer: 30-35 years

Question: So given an even spread from new through to about to be scrapped what would the average age be?
Answer: 15-17 years.

Of course this only applies if you are replacing 300 or so vehicles a year

Question: How many vehicles are DafT replacing a year?
Answer: None

In which case we're in a Hymns Ancient and Modern Situation.

Change and decay in all around I see.
Funder of the railways oh invest in me.

Last train

Telegrammed by The Raver
Exciting news from Network Rail.

According to a press release issued today there is to be...

A NEW ERA FOR FOLKESTONE HARBOUR

Indeed.

One without trains.

First for redundancies

This from Transport Briefing...

Some 600 posts are slated to go at the company's rail division, which includes the Scotrail, First Great Western and First Capital Connect franchises and a stake in the TransPennine Express venture run in partnership with French transport firm Keolis.

Perhaps they'll be sent on their way with a copy of Moir's lovely book?

IEP Farm

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
This written answer given in the House of Commons on the 18th March:

Theresa Villiers (Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Transport; Chipping Barnet, Conservative) | Hansard source
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether his Department assessed Bombardier's bid under the Intercity Express Programme contract to be substantially compliant with the specifications set by his Department.

Paul Clark (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Gillingham, Labour)
Both bids, from Agility Trains and from Express Rail Alliance (which includes Bombardier) were of a very high quality and were deemed substantially compliant.

How did Orwell put it? All trains are substantially compliant, but some are more substantially compliant than others?

Station usage shocker

Telegrammed by The Master
You may remember the little faux pas from the spotters who run the 'Going Loco' forum where they managed to confuse reopening an old railway line with a brand-new one.

Well, it seems that they're at it again.

They've attempted some analysis of the latest station usage figures from ORR and come up with this gem:

"In a rather disappointing finding for the newly opened Ebbw Vale line the 2 stations with the lowest usage are both on it. Crosskeys was the least used station with 8 people in the 2007/08 period. 2nd least used station was Llanhilleth with 10."

Hardly surprising really.

Llanhilleth (28th April 2008) was opened three weeks after the reporting period and Crosskeys opened two months (7th June 2008) after the reporting period!

A career with DaFT certainly beckons.

UPDATE: This from an 'Anonymous' reader...

They've come up with another stunner today in their 'Front page news'

"The Rail Regulator has published its report on the average of rolling stock on the network, which shows that the average age has risen to a five year high. [b]The average age is now 15.5 years, compared to 15.7 in the Summer of 2004[/b]."

Err...

One hopes that putative careers at DafT have nothing to do with statistical analysis.

UPDATE: This from a completely 'Anonymous' reader...

I had hitherto thought that was patently obvious ...

Tom - we still miss you

Railway Eye mourned the departure of former rail minister Tom Harris.

And here is an example why...

I shall be raising this with the minister.

To see a video of the incident concerned click here...

A shame the same level of common sense doesn't exist amongst the TOCs

Directions and guidance

This from Mini-me in the House of Commons on the 4th March:

Paul Clark (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Gillingham, Labour) | Hansard source:

As for bonuses, let me say again that that is a matter for Network Rail.

However, I am sure that hon. Members would expect Network Rail's remuneration committee to be mindful of the public mood and not to award bonuses that the travelling public would consider unjustified by their own experiences of Network Rail's performance.

I am referring here to the hundreds of thousands of commuters on the West Coast Main Line whose services were cancelled and massively disrupted in the new year due to the poor maintenance of overhead wires.

Reprinted here, just in case the Remuneration Committee didn't hear it the first time...

UPDATE: This just in from Network Rail...

First with the news as ever! I'm sure I don't need to remind tfc that Network Rail's management incentive plan is calculated by using three main performance indicators agreed with the regulator - train performance, financial efficiency and asset stewardship.

Influential that you are, it is those factors that the remuneration committee will take into account when the year is over and the numbers have been crunched.

The minister's comments in Hansard two weeks ago mentions the travelling public's own experiences of Network Rail's performance on West Coast. Yes we had a some teething problems on West Coast, not helped of course by a plane crash in addition to the unrelated series of overhead line equipment failures.

Today, the real story on West Coast is that over 1,000 extra trains every week run and journey times slashed by up to 30%. Freight users enjoy a 70% increase in capacity while weekend passengers travelling to places such as Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham benefit with shorter journey times and more services.

I'd gently also remind this blog's reader(s) that the latest Passenger Focus survey shows that 83% of passengers are satisfied - the highest number yet recorded.

Isn't this called shooting the messenger?

UPDATE: Captain Deltic harrumphs...

If 17% of readers were dissatisfied with Eye it wouldn't have become the dominant force in the railway blogsphere that makes even Network Rail sit up and engage with the real world.

Lies, damned lies, etc... etc...

Scottish Ps & Qs

Telegrammed by the Major
Disgraceful behaviour in the Scottish Parliament:

(MSP).....I have almost lost track of the amount of my correspondence on crossrail with the minister and Transport Scotland. Getting an answer from Mr Stevenson in writing is no easier than getting one in the chamber. It seems, on occasion, that he has delegated so much of his portfolio to Transport Scotland that all that is left for him to do is give us bad news and occasionally unveil new paint schemes for the trains.

Mike Rumbles: He has delegated everything. He just tells us what the civil servants want.

The Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change (Stewart Stevenson): Bollocks.

Alison McInnes: Pardon?

The Presiding Officer: Members should be careful about the language that they use in the chamber.

Quite right too. Pardon is so non-U!

Livingstone to return?

***Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone - who lost last year to Conservative Boris Johnson - will challenge again in 2012.***

Non!

Telegrammed by Ithuriel
Lord Adonis may know more about railways than the average transport minister - and we have had some outstandingly average transport ministers in recent years, but not enough to spot when his officials are embroidering the truth.

In a letter to an MP whose constituent had asked the Walmsley Question (why not loco haulage for IEP?) the noble Lord rehearses all the old canards and as a clincher concludes:

"The French railways have recognised these arguments and so the next generation of the TGV, the AGV, will operate as distributed traction with all vehicles carrying passengers."

So there!

Except that French Railways have nothing to do with AGV, which is an Alstom private venture.

And French Railways are still ordering TGV Duplex with power cars at each end.

They have noted the AGV development, but really want double deck trains for capacity. Fitting traction packages underneath double deck coaches would be un peu difficile

When anyone tries to drag in the French to support a technical argument, it's a sure sign they know they've met their Waterloo.

Leafs on the line

1D48 Driver Spilt Tea
CCIL 407995
IRN
1940 Hrs – Advised by EC Controller thaty 1D48 was at a Stand on Down Main at Finsbury Park.
Advised by NXEC Control that driver has Spilt Tea over Controls and Lost His Front Lights. Train will Return to Kings Cross for Fitters Attention. Train will be Cancelled at Kings Cross.

Competition moderated

In the mad world of today's railway Virgin gets to have its cake and eat it.

Under Moderation of Competition rules no other operator is allowed to provide services that might potentially abstract revenue from Beardie Rail.

In return Beardie Rail spins that it has spent billions of pounds on new rolling stock - it hasn't, Angel has, End of!

No matter.

Of course Moderation of Competition is a one way street, protecting Virgin profits but allowing Beardie Rail to muscle in on the operations of others.

For instance, those of open access operator WSMR.

Beardie Rail had ignored Shrewsbury and the Borders since privatisation but now it wants in on the action.

First it operated a token daily service to Wrexham.

Now it's keen to add Shrewsbury as a destination and has submitted a bid to the ORR that would see see several trains a day serve the city.

Of course the initial winners in all this will be the passenger, who will be offered an increased range of services and competition on fares.

Until of course the smaller operator is squeezed out and then Beardie Rail can charge what it likes.

An experience not unknown to those parts of the country unfortunate enough to benefit from bus services operated by Stagecoach

Which funnily enough owns 49% of Beardie Rail.

UPDATE: This from Ewan...

It’ll be interesting to see how loud Beardie Rail squawks when ATW submit the application for their Aberystwyth – Marylebone service, especially as it is just an extension of a couple of their current trains to Birmingham International.

ATW’s on-line puff does state that:

“Due to a protective clause in West Coast’s track access agreement, we are not able to carry passengers between Wolverhampton, Birmingham New Street, Birmingham International and London . However passengers from these stations will be able to travel directly to Leamington Spa and Bicester and Wembley”.

I’m sure Beardie Rail’s legal team will be asking some searching questions as to how ATW plan to ensure that is the case.

First for fares evasion

The Fact Compiler is unsure whether First is guilty of common sense or gross hypocrisy.

This from Channel 4 News...

A train company has defended its decision not to impose a penalty fare on former London Mayor Ken Livingstone after he travelled without a ticket.

First Great Western (FGW) train company said it has accepted Mr Livingstone's apology and they were happy for him to pay the fare when he got to Slough.

Bearing in mind Ken's destination perhaps they thought he had suffered enough!

UPDATE: Ithuriel writes...

It only goes to show that Hopwood is a big old-railway softy compared with the killer queen of FCC.

The fair Elaine's TTI's would not accept apologies from anyone!

UPDATE: This from a Mr Ferguson-Lee...

Ken would have a much friendlier reception in Greater Manchester, where Northern operate a 'no revenue' model at evenings and many weekends.

You can't buy a ticket even if you want to!

Corrections and clarifications

This just in from Robert Wright of the Financial Times...

The fact compiler appears to be confused - understandably confused, but still confused - about who owns Angel Trains.

The purchase from RBS was arranged by Babcock & Brown, the bit that's gone bust, which also arranged the financing.

But the shares are owned by a range of investors, including the Babcock & Brown European Infrastructure Fund, a separate fund that's unaffected by the Babcock & Brown collapse.

Babcock & Brown holds fewer than 5 per cent of the shares in BBEI, I'm told.

So there's no cause for alarm about the future of either Angel Trains or Forth Ports.

The Fact Compiler stands corrected!