This from the Beeb...
Good effort.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
We shall remember.
This from the ORR...
REGULATOR PROSECUTES NETWORK RAIL AND JARVIS RAIL OVER POTTERS BAR DERAILMENT
The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has today started criminal proceedings against Network Rail Infrastructure Limited and Jarvis Rail Limited for breaches of health and safety law which caused the Potters Bar derailment.
The prosecutions follow the conclusion of the inquest and ORR's investigation into the derailment of a West Anglia Great Northern express train at Potters Bar station in Hertfordshire on 10 May 2002. Seven people were killed, with many more seriously injured.
Network Rail Infrastructure Limited is facing a charge under section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (HSWA). This results from its failure, as infrastructure controller for the national rail network, to provide and implement suitable and sufficient training, standards, procedures and guidance for the installation, maintenance and inspection of adjustable stretcher bars.
Jarvis Rail Limited is also facing a charge under section 3(1) of HSWA. This results from its failure, as infrastructure maintenance contractor for the relevant section of the national rail network, to provide and implement suitable and sufficient training, standards, procedures and guidance for the installation, maintenance and inspection of adjustable stretcher bars.
Ian Prosser, director of rail safety at ORR said:
“The conclusion of the recent inquest into the derailment at Potters Bar has allowed the regulator to make a decision on whether any enforcement action should be brought in relation to the incident.
“I have decided there is enough evidence, and it is in the public interest, to prosecute Network Rail and Jarvis Rail for serious health and safety breaches. For the sake of the families involved, we will do all we can to ensure the prosecutions proceed as quickly as possible.
“The railway today is as safe as it has ever been, but there can be no room for complacency. Where failings are found those at fault must be held to account – and the entire rail industry must continue to strive for improvements to ensure that public safety is never put at a similar risk again.”
The first appearance is due to take place at Watford Magistrates’ Court on 7 January 2011 at 11am.
Notes to editors:
1. At the time of the incident the infrastructure controller for the national rail network was Railtrack plc (in administration). Railtrack plc (in administration) was taken over by Network Rail Limited in October 2002 and later renamed Network Rail Infrastructure Limited.
2. In May 2002, Jarvis Rail Limited was the infrastructure maintenance contractor for the Potters Bar area of the national rail network. Jarvis Rail went into administration in March 2010.
3. The train that derailed was the West Anglia Great Northern 12.45pm Cambridge Cruiser service from King's Cross to King's Lynn.
4. On 17 October 2005 the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that, after consideration of the evidence, it had advised the British Transport Police (BTP) that there was no realistic prospect of conviction for an offence of gross negligence manslaughter against any individual or corporation arising from the Potters Bar incident.
5. In February 2007, following a fatal derailment of a train at Grayrigg, the inquest into the fatalities at Potters Bar was adjourned, pending the decision of the Secretary of State for Transport on whether a public inquiry or joint inquest should be held into the Potters Bar and Grayrigg incidents. In June 2009 the Secretary of State for Transport decided that separate inquests should be held into the Potters Bar and Grayrigg incidents.
6. As a signatory to the Work Related Death Protocol, ORR has agreed not to prosecute for health and safety offences prior to an inquest unless waiting for the inquest to be completed would prejudice the case. A copy of the protocol can be found at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/misc491.pdf
7. The inquest into the deaths at Potters Bar took place during June and July 2010; the jury returned seven verdicts of accidental death.
8. In October 2010 the CPS informed ORR that it had decided that there were no grounds for it to reconsider its decision of October 2005.
9. Network Rail Infrastructure Limited is facing one charge that, between 31 March 2001 and 11 May 2002, it failed to conduct its undertaking as the infrastructure controller for the national rail network in such a way as to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, that persons not in its employment who may be affected thereby were not exposed to risks to their safety, in that it failed to provide and implement suitable and sufficient training, standards, procedures, guidance or other specifications for the installation, maintenance and inspection of shallow-depth adjustable stretcher bar points.
10. Jarvis Rail Limited is facing one charge that, between 31 March 2001 and 11 May 2002, it failed to conduct its undertaking as infrastructure maintenance controller for the East Coast Main Line section of the national rail network in such a way as to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, that persons not in its employment who may be affected thereby were not exposed to risks to their safety, in that it failed to provide and implement suitable and sufficient training, standards, procedures, guidance or other specifications for the installation, maintenance and inspection of shallow-depth adjustable stretcher bar points.
11. Adjustable stretcher bars keep the moveable section of track at the correct width for the train's wheels.
12. The decision to prosecute has been made in accordance with ORR’s Enforcement Policy Statement, the Enforcement Management Model and the Code for Crown Prosecutors.
13. The maximum penalty the magistrates’ court can impose for each charge is a fine of £20,000. If the case is committed to the Crown Court the maximum penalty that may be imposed for each charge is an unlimited fine.
ENDS
This tosh from the People Parry Mover, who really do need to recruit a proper PR....
LOW-CARBON TRANSPORT PIONEER EXPECTS A BUSY FUTURE
Domestic and export market interest stimulates development work
Parry People Movers Ltd is preparing for a future in which its affordable and environmentally-friendly transport technology is becoming more and more attractive. Actions are being taken as a result of the success of its pioneering commercial application and approaches from potential customers in both domestic and international markets.
Eye has also taken 'actions'! And it involved the circular filing cabinet.
Good news for Agility Trains!
Whilst the ‘British led’ consortium desperately tries to square the circle with yet another innovative train design from Hitachi, a quick look at the IEP Invitation to Tender, issued in November 2007, and referring to the OJEU notice (published in March) says:
“Bidders must not submit variant Proposals. In the event that variant Proposals are submitted these will not be considered in the evaluation undertaken by the DfT.”
Just fancy that!
As for the original question the answer is: 'When it's a DfT variant desperately trying to create a Voyager clone to keep the bi-mode alive'.
Telegrammed by Ithuriel
What a pusillanimous lot the train operators are.
Here they are responding to today's Public Accounts Committee report on rail overcrowding.
The delay in tackling capacity has coincided with the growing involvement of civil servants in buying new trains. The best way to get value for money and ensure extra capacity is delivered when and where it is needed would be to return to a situation where train operators take a greater role in ordering new rolling stock. In the early days of privatisation, train operators successfully ordered nearly £5 billion of new trains.
Who can forget Michael Roberts' impassioned conference speeches denouncing DfT's malign influence over train procurement, the ATOC paper standing up for the role of the ROSCOs against the 'Linnard Terror' and the clinical dissection of the technical weaknesses in the Intercity Express Programme.
Meanwhile, back in the reality based community...
Eye recalls a near total silence from the organisation which, like its members, will only now deliver a kicking to DfT Rail after it has been brought down and hogtied by the new Secretary of State for Transport.
On the plus side - there shall be more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents...
UPDATE: This from Ithuriel...
How perverse that the Public Accounts Committee should be economically illiterate.
In its report on train overcrowding it says that there is no incentive for the rail industry to supply extra capacity without additional public subsidy.
Then the report adds 'The Department should in future franchises require operators to take measures themselves to avoid overcrowding and to meet the costs of doing so.'
But as Bowker's Law points out, there are only two sources of money for the railway: the taxpayer and the fare payer.
So is the PAC now calling for higher fares?
UPDATE: This from Leo Pink...
Perhaps the PAC is suggesting that royalties from Sir Moir's lovely book might pay the lease rental on the odd Pacer?
UPDATE: This from Routemaster...
Or perhaps, more seriously, cross subsidy from Stagecoach's lucrative bus business?
UPDATE: This from a Mr Robert Wright of the Pink 'un...
Railway Eye might want to direct readers towards the one newspaper report that made the point about how it wouldn't be economic for franchises to have an obligation to meet an overcrowding target. It's here.
I should warn readers of a nervous disposition, however, that the DfT doesn't approve of the piece's reference to 1,300 new carriages (they're additional, not all new), nor to our claim that "barely any" has been ordered.
They claim that orders have been placed for around a quarter and that's not barely any. Otherwise, it may prove edifying reading, however.
The DfT has published its 2011-15 Business Plan here
More to follow...
UPDATE: This doesn't bode well...
Dr Mike 'Death' Mitchell is still listed as Director of National Networks on page 28.
As ever DfT is master of its brief.
UPDATE: This from a Mr Richard Malins...
At last some good news in the Battle of the Barriers.
This from the same document:
B) Coalition Priorities The Department will no longer… …micromanage:
This with a bowler tip to @jst1986, via Twitter.
Not strictly a pointless sign.
But let Eye be the first to conratulate Northern on its attention to detail.
Telegrammed by The High Tea Party
So. Directly Operated Railways has published its accounts.
Amidst the usual self congratulatory PR puff there are one or two hard numbers.
Like the directors' remuneration for example. 
Perhaps at some point the Department for Transport could explain why, in the Age of Austerity, we need an organisation like DOR to second guess the management decisions of East Coast's own well paid directors?
Meanwhile, trebles all round!
UPDATE: This from a reader who wishes to remain Anonymous...
Whilst the DfT Business Plan published today claims that:
We will also pursue our wider transparency agenda through publishing details of:
Telegrammed by Our International Correspondent
The legendary impartial TV reporting of Sky News will be under detailed scrutiny by Direct Rail Services at their Carlisle HQ this week, after some rail-related unpleasantness in Germany.
Sky says (without attribution) that 17,000 Polizie are deployed against 250 Greenpeace protestors blocking a train of reprocessed nuclear waste in transit to a deep level waste storage depot in Northern Germany.
DRS will be watching events closely because although they were set up by BNFL when the late Max Joule got hacked off with Railfreight Distribution and later EWS and decided to have his own train set, they are now a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, sharing with Barbie Rail the distinction of being a nationalised train operator.
NDA is responsible for the demolition of our nuclear legacy of Magnox Power Stations, and identifying deep level sites to store the glowing waste – a £12 billion project, for which public consultation ends on 24 November.
NDA have said that rail will be preferred over road as a matter of policy and so all the rail haulage work is heading DRS’s way.It is, after all, what they do, and they have been meticulously developing their loco fleet in anticipation, including 24 of the latest low-emission Class 66s.
But security for the lucrative traffic may be a headache.
The timings and routing of DRS nuclear trains are not published – thanks to Section 79 of the Anti Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 - but somehow Greenpeace finds them.
British Transport Police can field 2,837 bobbies, although not all at once or in the same place.
The Polonium Plod can provide another 1000 officers.
If Sky’s numbers are right (a very big IF) and if Greenpeace UK are as effective as their German colleagues (rather less of an IF), the decommissioning project is short of policing resources – by 13,000 bodies.
Fortunately £12 billion should neatly mop up all the redundant county force coppers who fall victim to the Spending review, creating the Best Little Police Force money can buy.
Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
This from the Sunday Express...
The other schemes being examined ahead of this week’s crunch decision include the electrification of several lines and a £7.5 billion order for Intercity Express trains under the Intercity Express Programme (IEP). Provisional bidder for the order is Agility Trains, a consortium led by Japan’s Hitachi.
IEP, potentially the most significant rolling stock investment programme in the UK for more than 30 years, will provide a new generation of trains to serve Britain’s long-distance routes.
The provisional requirement is for between 500 and 2,000 vehicles for the East Coast Main Line.
The Agility consortium is under pressure to cut the costs of its bid, with ministers using the threat of alternative options to extract a better deal. The alternatives include “re-engineering” the existing Intercity 125 trains or buying cheaper electric trains.
2,000 vehicles for the ECML?
Not so much Rail Barbie as Hail Barbie if she can pull this off!
Meanwhile the DfT spin meisters are still peddling the line that buying the wrong train for the wrong services at the wrong time is a shrewd move if it is cheap enough.
Exciting news from DB owned Alliance Rail.
The putative Open Access Operator is proposing a range of interesting new services on the West Coast Main Line, once Moderation of Competition restrictions designed to protect Virgin end in 2012.
But what's this?
Eye thought Open Access was all about bringing competition and customer choice to the railways.
But a quick glance at Yoghurt Rail's Track Access Application reveals the following:
Perhaps no surprise that Alliance Rail's state owned parent is happy to see the dead hand of a monopoly restored to the route.
This from a Mr Swift...
You may recall the mindless destruction of Retford's wonderful Railway Garden by the vegetation control vandals towards the end of the summer.
Good news! It is not just the economy that is allegedly showing the Green Shoots of Recovery.
As can be seen from this picture, taken this morning on a balmy Guy Fawkes' Day, the Buddleia (Butterfly Bush) is fighting back at Retford and is already over a foot high and going strong. 
Forget the demise of British Summer Time, for Spring has sprung early on the ECML!
This from Sharecast.com...
LONDON (SHARECAST) - The government has sold the right to run the high speed rail link between London and the Channel Tunnel to a Canadian consortium for £2.1bn.
The purchase of High Speed 1 gives the consortium, which comprises two Canadian pension funds, operating rights over running the line and the stations along it for 30 years.
Transport Minister Philip Hammond said the sale price ‘exceeds the highest expectations for the sale.’
He said it would help the government to reduce the deficit
Eye respectfully suggests to the Rt Hon Petrol-head that he uses this cash windfall to buy some much needed new trains for the rest of the network.
But not IEPs, obviously.
This from AltAssets.com...
This from an email invite to the Fourth Friday Club 'Golden Spanners' awards...
We have a large number of sponsored tables and members of the Club are invited to attend the event, where the cream of the rolling stock community will be present.
What can Modern Railways be suggesting.
"Cream of the rolling stock community"?
As in rich and thick?*
*With a bowler tip to Brian Souter, who used this line against himself at today's DDRF annual conference
This from Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road
According to Financial Times Political Correspondent, Jim Pickard, the DfT is using the threat of Sir Andrew Foster's credible alternatives to extract a better deal from Agility Trains.
So let's get this straight.
DfT thinks that saving money on a train that no-one in the railway industry wants is a better deal?
Oh dear.
Does Eye detect a degree of Palace dissatisfaction with the operator of the Royal Train?
This from the Mail on Sunday...
The man dubbed Mr Royal Train after playing a key role in helping it to run smoothly for more than 30 years has been made redundant after a German company took over its maintenance.
Strange that this story should surface almost four months after Deutsche Reichsbahn disinvented Mr Hillyard, presumably without consulting Brenda?
No matter.
After all what is Balmoral to Berlin?
But just to be on the safe side perhaps DB shouldn't make a large order for Royal Warrant embossed stationery?
UPDATE: This from Our International Correspondent...
Just to put the Daily Mail’s “scoop” into context, as every PR fule noes, when investigating a leak, follow the money.
In this case a little bit of forensics leads us not to the Palace, or to any disinvented ex-Railcare people who miss 1X01, but to the publishers of a new book.
Its author, Brian Hoey, is represented by one Gordon Wise, whose website helpfully informs us that the film rights may be available.
Not so much a Daily Mail scoop, as an obliging puff piece to help sales.
Compare and contrast...
This in today's Glasgow Herald...
New FirstGroup chief executive Tim O’Toole has dismissed Stagecoach founder Brian Souter’s call to have trains and tracks run by the same people as unrealistic.
With this from a certain Tim O'Toole when MD of London Underground...
"If you had complete vertical integration, one person would be responsible for everything, whereas with the PPP an awful lot of time and energy is spent just keeping score."
Just fancy that!
Surely nothing to do with one particular "thinly capitalised equity profiteer of the worst kind" being saddled with a mountain of debt?
This from the TSC...
3 November 2010
For Immediate Release: SCA 17/2010-11
NEW MEMBERS OF TRANSPORT COMMITTEE appointed
On Tuesday 2 November the House of Commons discharged the following members:
Angie Bray (Conservative, Ealing Central and Acton);
Lilian Greenwood (Labour, Nottingham South),
and Angela Smith (Labour, Penistone and Stocksbridge)
and formally appointed the following members:
Steve Baker (Conservative, Wycombe);
Julie Hilling (Labour, Bolton West),
and Gavin Shuker (Labour/Co-operative, Luton South)
The full committee is:
Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool Riverside) (Chair)
Steve Baker (Conservative, Wycombe)
Tom Harris (Labour, Glasgow South)
Julie Hilling (Labour, Bolton West)
Kelvin Hopkins (Labour, Luton North)
Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative, Spelthorne)
John Leech (Liberal Democrat, Manchester Withington)
Paul Maynard (Conservative, Blackpool North and Cleveleys)
Gavin Shuker (Labour/Co-operative, Luton South)
Iain Stewart (Conservative, Milton Keynes South)
Julian Sturdy (Conservative, York Outer)
ENDS
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