This from Pastor Redwonn...
What a splendid opening last Tuesday of the new East London line.
But just how quickly did operator London Overground record its first SPAD on the new railway?
Five minutes?
Five hours?
Five days?
Perhaps we should be told?
What a lovely view for VSOE passengers travelling down the Eastern Docks branch. 
With a bowler tip to Paddyworksontherailroad...
These Buddleia nicely top off the huge retaining wall at High Wycombe station.
No doubt they will look truly glorious by mid summer.
With a bowler tip to Central User...
Telegrammed by Billy Connections
Not a new magazine but Eye's latest, exciting, competition.
Using your skill and judgment you are invited to guess which of the two plaques below was formally unveiled today.
This one...
Or this one...
The former or the latter?
What a forgiving friend Mrs Paint-Shoppro can be...
This from Thomas Crapper...
Unveiling plans for a new 'bog standard loo' for train travellers, Chris Green said ancient, dirty and inadequate toilets that hark back to the Victorian age of steam must be ripped out.
He urged Britain's 2,500 stations to install a standardised national model that is clean, efficient and available to waiting passengers.
Clearly the so-called 'station tsar' is behind the times. 
This three year old photo of the formal opening of the new toilets at Welwyn Garden City shows that the Government's rail manager of choice was well ahead of the times.
UPDATE: This from S N Barnes...
I do hope that the new equipment will come with the same clear instructions, here is an fine example from the urinals which graced the facility at Stirling Station.
Of course Crapper's patent actually refers to the U bend, which forms the airtight seal to stop the smell of the sewer from coming back up the pipe.
Could we perhaps see this as a retrofit to some of the more modern on-train 'facilities' that seem to suffer from this problem?
Telegrammed by Bulldog Drummond
Bulldog's flinty old heart was warmed by Mike Horne's and Jonathan Roberts' launch of their book 'A Century of Change - Britain's Railways and the Railway Study Association' at the German Gymnasium Kings Cross last night .
It is a packed hamper of a book bursting with nuggets skillfully gleaned from the RSA archives by Mike complemented by some crystal-ball gazing by Jonathan.
Bulldog, who wishes to make absolutely clear he is not in any way related to Orlando Figues, was genuinely impressed.
The Railway Study Association may be struggling a bit to make its voice heard in an industry where many bosses take a Year Zero view of the profession they have joined. In this rather dismal environment Mike and Jonathan have significantly added to RSA's credibility and produced a great read.
Make a stand, be a thinking railwayman. Go out and buy this book!
This from the BBC's Nick Robinson...
The American economist David Hale says that the governor of the Bank of England has told him that the next British government will need to launch an austerity drive so tough that it will threaten its political survival, potentially leaving that party out of power for a generation.
Farewell electrification, Crossrail, a new Thameslink fleet, add your own pet project here, etc...
Good to see that the new Stratford International station is preparing to enter Railway Eye's famed Garden Competition.
Or is the shed perhaps Eurostar's new first class lounge?
Telegrammed by Bulldog Drummond...
Nick Hassell in his Times Tempus column today does quite a good job analysing Stagecoach's recent (fairly creditable) performance.
But he ends up talking, as most analysts do, of upcoming sector consolidation.
Have any of these deep thinking hacks paused for a moment to think what the Competition Commission response will be?
The Government contracted passenger transport industry is already reduced to a handful of serious players.
Any fewer and CoCo will, rightly, see huge conflicts of interest.
What buses and railways want are more varied and interesting players rather than the present narrow field dominated by European nationalised railways and Scottish bus bandits.
This from Richard Trevithick...
With the ubiquitous 'Tornado' strangely missing from Captain Deltic's collection of IEP alternative "Top Trumps", the owning Trust is now looking to join the horsepower race by building a second replica.
This time a Gresley P2 - allegedly the most powerful kettle to run on British metals.
How soon before they set up a production line?
If Government doesn't get its finger out on a nuclear power programme the Carnot Cycle locomotive could be the saviour of the railways.
So who is really interested in buying First freight subsidiary GBRf?
Apparently at least one domestic freight operator is.
Sources suggest Freightliner; as the avaricious DB is now too busy consuming Sunderland based bus and rail combo Arriva.
Meanwhile, Eye understands that a number of overseas money houses are sniffing round.
Interesting.
Who might have form for buying freight operations with a "nationwide network"?
Particulalry with rising oil costs making "rail freight more profitable against the rival truck-based freight"?
Eye likes the sound of WBRf!
This from @SWLines, via Twitter...
XC have definitely reduced the NQY - KYL fare and everything derived from it.
It's now £921.
Too late - the £1,000 fare has already entered folklore. (with a bowler tip to @PlanetAl)
UPDATE: From Steve Strong...
Now that Lord Adonis has sorted out Cross Country fares can he please hold them to their franchise commitments.
Still no WiFi aboard Arriva XC despite a franchise promise to deliver it by 11th November 2009!
UPDATE: This from @SWLines...
@TheFactCompiler got another missing franchise commitment.
XC don't do at seat catering north of EDB/west of PLY.
In fact, they withdrew it!
UPDATE: This from Billy Connections:
Here's a whole list of things XC promised to do...
Introduction of five High Speed Train (HST) sets each with eight state-of-the-art refurbished coaches (total of 550 seats per set), providing longer trains with more seats and luggage space on the major North East-South West route...
Errr... all HSTs reduced by one vehicle and only 2 in daily service - plus two hired to East Coast at the moment...
High quality service on board:
Hot on the heals of losing Michael Caine it now appears First has lost another one.
Tom Joyner, Ops Director of FuCC, has also been misplaced.
Happily all is not completely lost.
Eye understands that Jackie Townsend returns to the industry in his stead.
UPDATE: This from the Shunter...
It's a bad day.
This from Sadiq Khan, via Twitter...
I uploaded a YouTube video -- £8 million for Earlsfield Station refurbishment
Eye is happy to say, judging by the video's quality, that this was obviously not filmed by DfT press officers.
A shame the original DfT training video has been removed from YouTube - Sadiq's team might have found it useful.
UPDATE: This from @SadiqKhan, via Twitter...
@TheFactCompiler thank you!
Has the Fact Compiler been had?
According to the latest issue of Modern Railways the Department for Transport has it in for Open Access Operators.
Lets hope the Mandarins weren't watching the Weakest Link tonight then.
In the final minutes there was a head to head between Dan, who books training courses for NHS employees, and Anne, who works for "a railway company in York".
Eye understands that Anne is being far too modest - she is in fact the Finance Manager for Grand Central.
So what was the result of this latest, televised, battle between the public and private sectors?
Anne - you are the strongest link!
Eye hears that First Group has misplaced no less a person than Michael Caine!
Caine, nee Micklethwaite, was apparently FGW's commercial director.
Not a lot of people know that.
Exciting news from Osama Saeed the SNP candidate for Glasgow Central.
Keen to better understand the views of his potential constituents Osama has sent out the following survey.
All very laudable and good to see that the people are finally being listened to.
But what's this?
Not content with destroying The Union do the Scottish Nationalists also plan to repeal Einstein's General Theory of Relativity?
Mind you if they can cut the distance to London the business case for High Speed 2 gets even better!
UPDATE: This from a Mr West...
Actually, the SNP seem to be a very solid grasp of Einstein's relativity.
As any fule kno, a rail passenger travelling at (high) speed will observe a smaller distance from Glasgow to London than a stationary observer due to compression of the space-time continuum.
It's basic rocket science, really.
UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...
Indeed, as the famous limerick explains
There was a young fellow called Bright
Who thought Einstein's theory was right.
He departed one day
In a relative way,
And came back the previous night.
According to @PoliticsHomeUK the Labour Party is calling on broadcasters to focus on policy.
Labour is trying to get the LibDems and Tories to sign up to a draft letter saying:
We are writing to broadcasting organisations with a public service remit to ask you all to ensure that during the last ten days of the campaign your programmes analyse our policy proposals to the same level of detail as at previous election campaigns.
What a splendid initiative.
Despite the parlous state of the economy not a word from any of the major parties on where post election transport cuts will be made.
We all know they are coming so surely its time to end the equivocation and spin.
Brown, Cameron and Clegg don't take us for fools - it's time to tell us where the cuts will fall.
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