The London Living Wage for Underground cleaners?
Seems fair enough, it's a dirty shitty job and £7.60 an hour in London is not unreasonable.
Especially when it's already been promised...
More of this please RMT and less of the Cuba nonsense.
***UK.Railway reporting that the Talyllyn has lost its General Manager due to the railway's "serious ongoing financial problems"***
Good news from 'Crow Bar' Bob and the RMT:
RMT GENERAL secretary Bob Crow will be joined by Alabama 3, Aleida Guevara (Che Guevara’s daughter), Labour movement legend Tony Benn and a host of other... (windbags? Ed) this Wednesday evening for the 7th Annual RMT Cuba Garden Party which this year will mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution.
And what a celebration it will be.
Just look at what 50 years of communist dictatorship have achieved on Cuba's railways.
Note the high level of crashworthiness and train crew protection afforded to RMT's brothers and sisters in Fidel's island paradise.
Presumably Bob and co will take the opportunity to speak out about this scandal at Wednesday's do?
Nah, thought not.
UPDATE: This from the Velopodist...
The RMT of course won't be raising any issues about Cuba's problems because, like so many of my less imaginative fellows on the left of the political spectrum, they attribute them all to the US economic embargo.
It's kind of a back-handed compliment to the robust health of capitalism when you think about it, isn't it?
But the thing that really stinks about their event is the presence of a real-life Cuban citizen who has, presumably, travelled to London specially for the event.
You can tell she's a member of the country's elite because they let her leave.
Her less fortunate counterparts are so desperate that they'll use any leaky raft to try to get to the United States, whose supposedly inferior system Ms Guevara will presumably be roundly criticising.
UPDATE: This from Graveshafter...
Sorry!
Crashworthiness and traincrew protection?
At least that Cuban rustbucket doesn't carry passengers.
Unlike Pacers.
Where are RMT with these a mere ten years after the event?
Applications to join NR's 'Stepford Wives' closed on the 12th June.
The Membership Selection Panel (MSP) hopes to write in the week commencing 27 July 2009 to inform applicants whether or not they have been invited to the Candidate Workshops.
Our man at 222 Marylebone Road, the Independent Expert, Dreadnought, Leo Pink, The Major, etc... all await the call with anticipation.
Unsurprisingly none have rushed to clear their diaries yet...
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
What a soft job speech writers have at the Department for Transport.
All they have to do is dig out an old speech and change a couple of initials around.
This top secret draft of Lord Adonis' talk to the Fourth Friday club has reached the Eye from an anonymous source:
"As an organisation, XX combines the classic shortcomings of the traditional nationalised industry.
"It is an entrenched monopoly. That means too little responsiveness to customers' needs, whether passenger or freight; no real competition; and too little diversity and innovation.
"Inevitably, it also has the culture of a nationalised industry: a heavily bureaucratic structure; an insufficiently sharp awareness on the part of employees that their success depends on satisfying the customer - indeed, on attracting more customers; and an instinctive tendency to ask for more taxpayers' subsidy and to feel that public subsidy will always be there as a crutch whenever things look difficult..."
Can Eye readers guess which of Lord Adonis' predecessors first uttered these words and when?
Good news for the West Coast Main Line.
According to Transport Briefing yesterday:
Network Rail is to pump a further £50m into the West Coast Route Modernisation amid mounting embarrassment that the line is the most unreliable in Britain despite a £9bn upgrade.
Interestingly a reader suggests that as at 15:30 yesterday Virgin's press office were completely unsighted on the plans.
No matter.
Meanwhile delays look set to get worse before they get better.
Apparently Network Rail are to replace 290 sets of points that were not replaced during the original upgrade!
The announcement of the extra spend is perhaps unfortunate, especially as NR has already committed £2.4m on a splendid advertising campaign to tell us how the project had been succesfully completed.
All of which inevitably draws attention back to the thorny issue of Network Rail bonuses.
The Eye gave credit to Coucher for surrendering his annual bonus, but now fears that this may not be enough.
As the WCML Upgrade is turning into a costly farce for TOCs and taxpayer alike can Network Rail really reward its already well renumerated directors with bonuses running into six figures?
Bonuses which will be seen, even if unfairly, as a reward for failure.
UPDATE: This just in from J Alfred Prufrock...
If Network Rail spends £50 million on the Worst Corporately Managed Line because people caused a fuss then perhaps ORR's fines need to be recalibrated to get serious action.
How about adding a nought to the number 1200 grade* first thought of.
*1200 grade is the smoothest and least abrasive Emery paper.
***RMT saying MTR out of bidding for Tyne and Wear metro***
It's that time of year again.
Welcome back to the Railway Garden Competition.
Our first entry comes from Barking.
Beautiful. And how reassuring for passengers.
UPDATE: This from the 'Commuter'...
At a recent meeting a representative from Network Rail stated that they have been taking advice from the "experts" at Kew Gardens on how to deal with trackside vegetation.
As Kew's mission statement is to "inspire and deliver science-based plant conservation worldwide" then NR seems to have gone to the wrong place.
Wouldn't it be better to have a word with the manufacturers of Agent Orange?
This from the government's Digital Britain report published last Tuesday:
"mobile network operators... to provide and fund solutions to take the initiative to improve the broadband mobile access for mobile customers travelling by Tube."
Good news indeed for transport minister Sadiq Khan.
Who, the Telegraph reveals, has THREE mobile phones which we pay for.
Campaigning lawyer Louise Christian, of Christian Khan solicitors, is demanding a public enquiry into the Grayrigg accident.
Hopefully this will be dealt with in person by Secretary of State, Lord Andrew Adonis, and not left to the junior Transport Minister responsible for railways, Sadiq Khan.
That would be the same Sadiq Khan as in 'Christian Khan' - Louise's former business partner.
How ironic that the new transport minister built his previous business from suing the railways.
Good news from the mother of XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXX XXXXX has confirmed that he is to announce the XXXXXX XX XXX XX XXXX XXXXX on XXXXXX.
Prime Minister XXXXXX XXXXX said
XXXXXX XX XXXXXX XXXX X XXXXX XXXXX XXXX XX XXXXX XXXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXX X XXX, XXXX XXXXXX.
What a bunch of troughing XXXXX.
This from 'Dreadnought'...
I was interested to see your little extract from Virgin and their ambitions for the Glasgow market.
On Wednesday I travelled first class to Preston on the 0830 ex Euston and returned on the 1440 ex Glasgow.
No breakfast on the way up due to a faulty kitchen.
Four out of six toilets out of use on the way back.
It looks as if the strain of trying to run the VHF timetable with too few units is starting to take its toll.
A chap sitting opposite told me it was the second time in a week he had been deprived of his breakfast due to kitchen problems.
Not exactly good enough for the bargain price of £390 return!
Yes it's quick, it's frequent but the quality is falling noticeably.
UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...
If you are running the VHF short of a Pendolino due to Grayrigg (thanks Network Rail) and because of infrastructure failures (thanks Network Rail) you are regularly stepping up units, leading to the situation where Alstom Train Care don't know which depot a train with a problem is going to end up at. So the replacement griddle may be at Longsight whilst the Train with the dodgy griddle ends up at Wembley...
This is not to say that Virgin and Alsom are blameless, but merely to introduce some mitigating factors.
And from a chart on the wall of Wembley depot noted last Wednesday, about 80% of Pendolino 'toilets out of use' arriving on depot are blocked, so presumably something unsuitable was put down them.
Mind you, when I was the world's leading writer on train toilets (in a field of one, I might add) I went to see the Scandinavian pioneers of vacuum, toilets and they designed to avoid blockages due to coke cans. They use dog food for testing, by the way.
This piece of grandstanding tosh from the Tories:
Commenting on the news that the Government has ruled out an inquiry into the Potters Bar and Grayrigg rail crashes, Shadow Transport Secretary, Theresa Villiers, said:
“This is a real blow for the families of those who died in these terrible crashes. It is unacceptable for the Government to have left those campaigning tirelessly for a Potters Bar inquiry hanging on for seven years. The delay has only served to increase the distress to those who were injured or lost loved ones as a result of the crash."
Hmmm.
One of the reasons that organisations like the RMT, and others, have called for a public inquiry rather than an inquest is to see what role privatisation played in these two major accidents.
That would of course be the same privatisation carried out by the "back to basics" adulterer John Major in the dying days of the last Tory govenment.
The same privatisation that destroyed an integrated railway on dogmatic grounds and added billions to its annual operating costs.
A privatisation that even Chris Grayling, the former Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, had to conceed was a 'mistake'.
Perhaps best to butt out of this one Theresa.
Telegrammed by our Independent Expert
Do BBC news editors ever travel by train?
Thursday's News at Ten reported on the global warming threat to "national infrastructure"... with a shot of SVR track washed away in floods two years ago!
Mind you, if it secures additional government dosh then it's time to head to Kidderminster.
Telegrammed by Leo Pink
So Network Rail are keen to discourage feral youth from loitering at Glasgow Central station?
The obvious solution is to gate station entrances so that only ticket holders can enter!
Those wishing to buy a ticket at the station, and how 20th Century is that! - would buy a 'Permission to Enter Facilities' pass for £2 which would be refundable against tickets bought in the station.
For family groups meeting relatives there would be a group pass for two adults and up to three children costing £5.
Although such a proposal might not find favour with retail outlets and indeed Eye's editor...
(Indeed it wouldn't, although The Fact Compiler has no problem with re-introducing what we used to call platform tickets. Ed)
This from the BBC...
The government is wrongly prioritising investment in rail over roads, despite 92% of all passenger journeys in the UK being made by car, the RAC has said.
A bold challenge from a well connected and highly effective lobby organisation.
So who will pick up the RAC's gauntlet and defend the railway industry?
The supplier group the Rail Industry Association wouldn't say boo to a goose and sadly the Railway Forum has become mute in recent years.
Which leaves us dependent on Network Rail or ATOC.
But can either be said to speak for the whole industry?
So where is the railway's 'RAC' and who should be our Glaister?
UPDATE: This just in from Ithuriel...
No one can speak for the railway industry because there is no 'industry' sharing common objectives - unlike the RAC (we want lots of roads for our member's cars), or the SBAC (we want orders for lots of planes), or even the Rail Freight Group (we want passenger trains abolished and the entire network cleared to continental gauge).
Getting ATOC to agree to anything is like herding cats, and even then it daren't offend Marsham Street.
Network Rail thinks it speaks for the railway industry in much the same way that Spitting Image portrayed Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet at dinner. 'What will you have Iain? 'I'll have steak'. What about the vegetables?' 'The TOCs will have steak too'.
The Railway Industry Association speaks only for the supply industry'
And the Railway Forum is reported to have lost the First big beast in its membership.
So that leaves Railway Eye or Lord Adonis.
UPDATE: Manifestly some Eye readers have too much time on their hands. This from the late Sir Arthur Sullivan...
Stand up, stand up for railways, at Euston and “The Cross”;
Lift high the CP4 plan, it must not suffer loss.
From apathy to victory , the DfT must lead,
Till every train runs "On Time", - Adonis, Lord indeed.
Stand up, stand up for railways, the trumpet call obey
We need a gallant champion, someone who’s here to stay.
For those who run a franchise are more concerned with brass
And those in the freight business, are “looped” to let them pass.
Stand up, stand up for railways, who’s good at slick PR?;
Someone who’ll “up the anti” against the friends of car.
Someone who‘s credibility; is something to be feared
Some say that it’s “The Captain”? whilst others say “The Beard”. (Nah!)
Stand up, stand up for railways, the strife will yet be long;
Forget about the bonus, forget about a gong!.
To those who raise the standard and fly it till they die;
Will have eternal Glory, (bowler tip to Railway Eye).
Network Rail yesterday issued an OJEU in connection with the proposed electrification of the Midland and Great Western mainlines.
Optimistically entitled 'Network Electrification' the document outlines NR's requirement as follows:
"The programme currently envisages the potential introduction of electric traction onto the Midland and Great Western Mainlines over Control Periods 5 and 6 subject to comprehensive study/development being carried out during Control Period 4.
In order to facilitate this programme, Network Rail is seeking to procure a number of services from the supply industry.
The initial development phase will include developing optimum technical solutions and outline design for all elements of electrification and associated infrastructure."
As the OJEU points out it is 15 years since Britain last saw a mainline electrified.
Typical, you wait 15 years and then two come along at once.
Brighton is the most metropolitan of seaside resorts.
So it came as no surprise to see Messrs Ludeman, Souter & Eccles taking the South Coast air there, earlier this week.
Strange, no postcard yet.
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