RAIL head honcho Nigel Harris assures Eye that normal blogging will resume shortly.
Recent disruption, we are told, has been due to annual leave, National Rail Awards, staff holidays and sorting out The Scottish Question!
Eye can't wait for the latest issue of the magazine!
This from nebusiness.co.uk... 
LEADING rail industry operator Haydn Abbott has joined the board of Newcastle vehicle communications specialist Nomad Digital.
There has to be a joke in this somewhere...
Lord Adonis appeared on the BBC's Daily Politics show yesterday.
To view Andrew Neil enjoying the sound of his own voice click here.
When the Noble Lord managed to get a word in edge-ways there were two salient quotes:
1. “Given that life expectancy is increasing, many people will get the chance to travel on the new high speed line”. Note to rolling stock manufacturers - lots of Priority Seating required.
2. "I will not serve in a Conservative Government."
Does being Chairman of HS2 count as a political appointment?
If it does then Rowlands has well and truly nailed his colours to the mast.
Via the wonders of MMS this from Captain Deltic...
Help! shouts Captain D.
I'm trapped on the refurbished Platform 6 at Derby and someone has forgotten the Way Out signs.
UPDATE: This from a Mr Malins...
Here it is, but there's a pesky ticket barrier in the way!
All part of the Stagecoach plan to make travel difficult.
Good news for media in the South East!
Uber-PR, Jane Lee, is to return to the industry as Southern's PR supremo.
Eye hopes Ms Lee will forgive the use of her namesake's movie title...
UPDATE: Captain Deltic shares his favourite Jane Lee story.
A few years ago a car''s steering failed and it ran into Jane.
Surprisingly the car didn't come off worse and Jane was taken to hospital with a broken arm.
In casualty the doctor was about to cut away Jane's fashionable leather jacket to assess the damage.
'Cut this coat and you're a dead man' growled the patient. The jacket remained intact.
Welcome back!
This from the RMT...
RAIL UNION RMT today launched a confidential email hotline for members amid growing concerns over planned maintenance cuts by Network Rail which have put over 2500 – nearly 20% of the total workforce – at risk.
Today, all RMT Network Rail maintenance members have been sent by text and email details of a confidential email address where they can feed through local details of the impact of the cuts the length and breadth of the UK.
Get ready for a Winter of Discontent.
UPDATE: This just in from Network Rail...
May I gently remind the RMT that there is already an independent safety body (CIRAS) that maintains a confidential hotline for anyone who has rail safety concerns:
They can be contacted online, by Freephone (0800 4 101 101), by text (07507 285887 - standard text rates apply) or in writing at Freepost CIRAS.
This one with a bowler tip to Bushy...
Using your skill and judgment can you identify this well known musical Railway Operator?
And for a bonus point can you suggest what she is singing?
Answers please on a postcard to Northern Rail...
This just in from a Mr Fergie-Lee...
Pictured is Malton, in the delightful district of Ryedale in North Yorkshire (of Calendar Girls fame); a station with just one platform face, a signalbox that looks like it was built by King John and a café that serves the best vegetarian quiche this side of Didsbury.
However, it is a shame that passengers to such a fine market town have to contemplate this screen of crappy vegetation whilst waiting for their train to York or Scarborough.
While the station buildings have been sensitively modernised, only the coming of Autumn will damp down the usual collection of weeds in the six foot, while the screen of scrubby silver birch trees just serves to show that if it isn't covered by a franchise commitment, nobody gives a monkey's.
What would Helen Mirren say?
UPDATE: This from a Mr Rodgers...
I suspect that Helen Mirren would have very little to say!
Yes, Malton is in Ryedale (District Council) but this is not the same place as where 'Calendar Girls' was set which was filmed in and around Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales, a mere 60+ miles away albeit in Yorkshire.
Mind you at least your contributor has also been caught without his clothes on (so to speak).
With the Noble Lord justifiably proud of his Greek antecedents is someone at Railnews labouring the point?
CYCLING HUBS
Lord Adonios also announced to the Labour conference a £14 million programme to create cycling hubs in ten major stations as part of the government's green transport policy.
Perhaps we should be toldios...
UPDATE: This from EastWestDivide...
But will the railway cycling hubs be Sturmey-Archer 3-speed?
And this one stretching the rule slightly.
Using your skill and judgment can you identify this well known Railway Operator who retired last week?
Answers please on a postcard to The Connect Project...
And yet one more for your consideration, this with an Underground theme.
Using your skill and judgment can you identify this well known lady Railway Operator?
Answers please on a postcard to the Metropolitan Railw... ooops, line.
And one more for your delectation and delight
Using your skill and judgment can you identify this well known Railway Operator? 
Answers please on a postcard to Virgin Trains...
More please...
An exciting new competition from the Eye!
Using your skill and judgment can you identify this well known Railway Operator? 
Answers please on a postcard to East Midlands Trains...
UPDATE: This from Shiny Shoes...
Great to see Shoveller shunting - mind you he was a guard at some point in his early career - so not afraid of getting his hands dirty.
But what's this?!
Undertaking probably one of the most risky jobs on the railway without correct PPE - where's your bump hat?
Surely a case of 'do as I say - not as I do'. East Mids shunters please take note (if such a thing still exists).
By the way the 'hanging gardens of Crewe' are slowly being removed.
This from Police Oracle...
A British Transport Police officer investigating reports of suspected cable thieves near Langley Mill railway station, Derbyshire has been seriously assaulted by one of the suspects.
The incident occurred around 00:30 hours on Sunday, 27 September, after police reacted to a report of intruders lineside in the vicinity of Milnhay Road, some 300 yards south of Langley Mill station.
Anyone with information relating to this incident is urged to contact British Transport Police urgently on Freefone 0800 405040 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111
This from Pete's Blog...
Apologies to Model Rail
'Nuff said.
Forgive me...
...but weren't we previously promised a referendum by this government?
Once bitten, twice shy.
As predicted by the Eye there have been further developments at beleaguered London Midland.
Yesterday LM errr... misplaced its Ops Director, Andy Thomas.
Steve Law has been drafted in as acting replacement.
Sources suggest that the axe hasn't stopped swinging yet...
UPDATE: This from 37422...
It gets worse.
Thanks to the train crew payments farce, Station Managers are now unable to buy any stores without finance director sign off.
Bring your own bog roll!
The RMT company council have advised LM that all station grade RMT members will be re-balloted for the Sunday payments.
Vacancies remain unfilled and stations remain closed as a consequence.
Happy days.
I give it until December before LM joins the WNXX pool.
Telegrammed by Party Animal
A busy evening in Brighton last night.
With at least three industry soirees taking place there was fierce competition to see who could attract the best speakers.
Whilst Bombardier and Network Rail had to make do with Lord Adonis one cheeky Open Access operator secured the PM for its Northern Night do!
Let's hope arch-blogger Guido Fawkes isn't correct in describing him as Jonah Brown...
UPDATE: This from NR's Internet Rapid Rebuttal Unit...
Not just Adonis.
Network Rail also had Amir Khan who is, of course, the face of our No Messin' campaign.
Meanwhile might the term 'Jonah Brown' be better applied to soi disant 'veteran observer' and Grand Central PR monkey Brennan-Brown?
This just in from Network Rail's Internet Rapid Rebuttal Unit...
Our friends at RAIL magazine were less than complimentary about our plans for high-speed rail in the new lines study.
However, we at Network Rail can always accept constructive criticism.
So we were thrilled to learn that Peterborough's finest minds have actually come up with their own high-speed proposal.
This leaked map proves, as ever, the magazine has got right the detailed analysis that Britain's 21st century rail system needs.
UPDATE: This, surprisingly, from the late Kenneth Williams...
These concerted attacks on RAIL by the high speed line fantasists remind me of my favourite line from my role as Caesar in Carry on Cleo.
'Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me'.
Isn't it about time for Jim Steer to have a go at Nije 'n' Phil? Otherwise people might think that Greengauge is not a proper grown up pressure group.
Stop messin' about Jim.
UPDATE: This, unsurprisingly, from Nigel Harris...
How can the alleged HSR map from NR's Internet Rapid Rebuttal Unit (IRRU) possibly be taken seriously?
If it really WAS the product of ‘Peterborough’s finest’ then, as any fule kno, it would go via Rose Grove and Copy Pit...
Perhaps all those pre-holiday fillings have addled the IRRU's brain?
UPDATE: This from a Mr D Lane, who appears to dabble in such things...
I would label this as the "Big W" or 'Woolworths' Plan.
'Nuff said, I think!
UPDATE: This from Leo Pink...
Surely Nigel's preferred route would run from Peterborough to Leicester, thence direct to Manchester London Road...
UPDATE: This just in from Phil Haigh...
Since my gaffer's stuck his oar into this one, I might as well offer a view too...
With my frequent journeys between London, Peterborough, York and Newcastle, the East Coast Main Line will do me quite well enough.
All it needs is 140mph trains.
But wait, didn't BR introduce these in the 1990s...?
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