A tip of the bowler to I Work For First Great Western for this...
Tim O’Toole and Colin Hood will join the Board of FirstGroup as Independent Non-Executive Directors on 7 May 2009.
And this just after yesterdays announcement that Dean Finch is to be Chief Exec of Tube Lines!
The Fact Compiler's flabber is well and truly gasted.
The latest issue of Rail has secured a nice quote from My Lord Adonis.
During the Pilgrimage of Grice the rail minister used an All Line Rail Rover, which he freely promoted in the media at just about every opportunity (something the train operators have singularly failed to do).
Alas.
As the Eye revealed two weeks ago ATOC are to increase the price of an All Line Rail Rover, from the 17th May, by a whopping 15%!
Indeed, so shocked was Adonis by the scale of the price increase he told Rail:
"With friends like that what enemies need the railways fear?"
With ATOC paying over a grand a day for PR consultants perhaps someone should have seen that coming?
This from Longrider...
I’ll be watching this one with interest. Not least because it is likely to set a precedent and, because this new law; Corporate Manslaughter (2007) Act; worries me.
Read it.
Whilst the rest of the media swallowed whole Virgin's latest puff piece about the introduction of on-train wifi the geek press was not so easily spun.
So full marks to ZDNet for spotting the inconvenient fact that:
Virgin Trains Wi-Fi arrives one year late
Beardie Rail late - never!
This from NCE...
Tube Lines appoints Dean Finch as chief executive
To paraphrase Mrs Malaprop: Tube Lines' loss is First's gain...
UPDATE: This from The Raver...
Fury at London Underground!
Telegrammed by our Independent Expert
The memorial to the great locomotive engineer as photographed at Edinburgh Waverley station on Wednesday.
The memory of Mallard's creator will live on long after the likes of TPE have been consigned to the corporate dustbin!
UPDATE: This just in from Captain Deltic...
Captain Deltic wonders what the Great engineer would have thought of Trans-Pennine Express' German Class 185 DMUs - or for that matter the Intercity Express Programme.
Since his reaction to the Reichsbahn's Flying Hamburger high speed diesel train was to show that loco-haulage could do better, we can only assume that the great man is following with approbation, from the great motive power depot in the sky, Ian Walmsley's campaigning for real inter-city trains with serious traction horsepower on the front end, rather than under the floor.
A little something for the office...
TOC's may wish to affix in a prominent position in carriages.
Telegrammed by the Master
NR's reputation for customer service will take a great leap forward from 2010 when the Leeds train planning office moves to, err... Milton Keynes.
Scotrail and TPE are reported to be non too impressed.
NR have acquired premises in this 'world class' town and are intending concentrating many more functions on the site.
But few staff seem keen to make the move to the land of concrete cows.
That's one way to reduce headcount.
UPDATE: This just in from DOS at Rugby...
The move to Milton Keynes, and planned centralisation of functions currently carried out in other locations, may well be connected to Mr Coucher residing near by.
Perhaps even he is finding a daily commute to Euston too expensive!
UPDATE: This just in from the Major...
I suspect Mr C has few problems with the cost of his MK commute.
Whether he's quite so happy at his train being late so often is another matter.
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
According to a Press Release...
Anticipating progressive improvement in energy efficiency and reduced carbon emissions from the rail, aviation and automotive sectors, the work, which was carried out by ATOC shows that high-speed rail could offer a huge saving in carbon compared with air travel and result in 70% less carbon per passenger-km than would be produced from a totally modernised electric car fleet. Against a mixed car fleet, in transition away from petrol/diesel engines, the advantages would be even more dramatic: HSR would produce 30 times less carbon per passenger-km.
"The basic point is this:”, said Greengauge 21 Director Jim Steer, “to achieve lower carbon in the transport sector, we need to provide a better alternative to flying or driving medium/long distances in Britain. High-speed rail offers the transformation needed to make this possible”.
Are we seriously expected to believe that by the time HS2 is built electric cars will have the range and speed to compete with rail, let alone high Speed Rail on inter-city journeys?
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
According to the latest issue of Rail Professional the Department for Transport is...
"...seeking pitches for an unspecified number of electric multiple units as part of the Thameslink upgrade."
Er, the Invitation to Tender is quite specific about the number of full length and reduced length diagrams to be met and when, leaving the supplier to work out the availability and the number of trains needed.
RailPro adds that the closing date for submissions is 30 April.
Er, because of funding issues the bidders have now been given an extra couple of months to shake their piggy banks.
Still, the magazine is free.
This just in from the RMT...
RMT ANNOUNCED today that around 1000 rail engineering members at Jarvis, will be taking industrial action on May 5 2009 in response to plans by the company to axe 450 jobs as union talks with Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon broke up with the government failing to give assurances on job cuts in the rail industry.
Let the scorched earth policy begin!
This from the Evening Standard...
Sack 'Buff Hoon' say rail unions
Went well then!
Someone's been a naughty boy!
This from The Grauniad on the 13th April:
The government is considering a £250m stimulus package for the railways aimed at boosting revenues and passenger numbers...
Nothing in the budget as far as we could see.
Qui bono?
This from Simon Jenkins in the Evening Standard...
Kill Crossrail to save the Tube.
Is the recession about to claim its first major railway project?
UPDATE: This, amazingly, from 'AA Milne'...
It's amazing how quickly journalists have changed their tune, only a few days ago, it was all "support the public sector" but now they're all banging on about saving money.
They're sensing the death of NuLabour, they want to be on the winning side at the next election.
Presumably Mr Milne is a Conservative gentleman?
Eye readers may recall that Labour MP and uber-blogger Tom Harris was caught advertising Caviar and Foie Gras on his blog.
Now Wolmar's at it; although he appears to be catering to somewhat earthier tastes.
Obviously the clever chappies who feed ads to his site have worked out that anyone interested in railways must be a billy-no-mates in search of love (or a quick knee trembler).
Near unalloyed joy last week, amongst the TOC community, following Iain Coucher's intervention on fares.
Speaking to the FT after his speech to Wednesday's Passenger Focus conference Coucher said:
"If people are genuinely not travelling because of high fares, that's an issue for us. If we want people to use the most environmentally sustainable form of transport, we should look at the impact of pricing."
But what's this?
According to consultants employed by both ORR, and Network Rail, the UK has the most expensive railway infrastructure in the world!
This year alone NR will receive a Network Grant of £3.76bn from the taxpayer.
With the government committed to getting rail users to contribute ever more to running the railway it seems timely to repeat Bowker's Law:
There are only two sources of railway funding - the consumer and taxpayers.
As the recession bites ever deeper passenger traffic is leveling off, whilst the global downturn in trade and the movement of goods is hitting railfreight hard. So getting more from the consumer will be a struggle.
Meanwhile, Network Rail has a fixed regulatory settlement that sees its funding guaranteed for the next five years.
So if fares are to come down, then somebody will need to pick up the slack.
Up to the challenge Network Rail?
This just in from Robert Wright over at the 'Pink 'Un'...
"Ithuriel is perhaps being a little disingenuous in his recent piece on the cost of French high-speed rail.
"I've regularly seen the figures the French quote for building their lines and simply don't believe any of them.
"Do you think they include half the costs the British figures do?
"Is there a cost in there for diversion of trains on existing routes when the building work interferes with them? But is that not still a cost the railways have to bear? Do you think French municipalities desperate to have a high-speed rail station charge RFF all the legal costs of getting planning permission, as I'm sure happens in Britain? I am certain many of the costs of such a project stay hidden in continental Europe and become exposed in Britain.
"On top of all this, the LGV Méditerranée is a relatively short stretch of line from Lyons to Marseilles through largely empty countryside with few interactions with the classic rail network.
"The Crossrail work will involve rebuilding entirely some of the busiest bits of the UK rail network whilst services are maintained.
"Whilst not surprised the costs appear similar I'd argue that the Crossrail money is probably rather better spent."
UPDATE: This just in from Ithuriel...
Busiest bits?
Reading remodelling, electrifying from Airport Junction to Maidenhead (sorry Reading, you'll have to use diesels) and what else?
In modern money the East Coast Main Line electrification cost under £1 billion, inculding resignalling and new trains.
Now that was a real project.
UPDATE: Robert Wright responds...
I'm fascinated by Ithuriel's defence of the ECML electrification, which is so often held up as an example of how these things should be done.
What I'd love to see is a costing for that project that includes the very low original cost of doing it, the cost of train disruption since as a result of the under-specification of the overhead line and the costs incurred so far and likely to be incurred in future putting the worst bits of it right.
The sums might not look quite as magnificent...
UPDATE: Ithuriel draws his spear...
ECML electrification was under-specified in only two respects.
1) The power supply requirement was based on a timetable which did not allow for the expansion in the timetable two decades after the specification was given to the engineers. Thus supply points have had to be strengthened.
2) The wind specification in the 1980s did not know about global arming.
Wind speeds are now higher than the design case.
But, this is irrelevant compared with what happened after 1996, when track maintenance was privatised. Briefly, maintenance of the OHLE was neglected and the importance of aligning the catenary with the tracks below was overlooked..
Finally, the introduction of the Eurostar, with the French GPU pantograph designed for TGV OHLE imposed much higher forces on the contact wire and catenary than the pantographs on the IC225 trains which ran successfully at over 140 mph..
As a result the neglected and abused OHLE began to fail.
A classic case of nurture, not nature.
UPDATE: Robert responds...
I don't want to prolong my debate with Ithuriel unnecessarily and I know anecdotal evidence is useless.
But his points do not square with my experience of using the ECML regularly just after electrification.
There were regular, serious overhead line failures in 1991 and 1992, long before Eurostars ever ran on the line.
I even got a complimentary first-class return from the InterCity press office when, in an early bit of journalistic endeavour, I started asking questions about what the problem was.
So I'm far from sure privatisation and GNER's Eurostars are entirely to blame...
This topic is now closed in case anyone starts asking embarrassing questions about who in the InterCity press office bought off disgruntled hacks with free tickets...
***Richard Parry to be London Underground's interim MD***
UPDATE: The Fact Compiler's view can be found over at Boris Watch...
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