East Coast goes MAD for Railway Children

This from John Gelson over at East Coast...

I thought Eye readers might be interested in East Coast's support for the Railway Children's MAD Day - passenger reaction has been fantastic!

Here customer Alistair McKenzie buys a cake at the café-bar counter for the Railway Children charity from (left to right) Customer Service Assistant Jason Armstrong; Head of Catering Mark Tarry; and East Coast Chairman Michael Holden.


Michael said: “We’re delighted at the wonderful support for today’s Railway Children fundraising from our customers and our staff. It’s also been a great opportunity to work alongside some of our fantastic people, and see at first hand their work to help passengers as they travel.

“Together, we’ve raised funds for a very important cause and had a lot of fun at the same time. My thanks go to everyone who has helped with this memorable and enjoyable day.”

Good effort!

Charitably minded readers can donate to the Railway Children here.

UPDATE: This from East Coast...

Train company East Coast is thanking thousands of passengers who helped raise £10,000 in just one day to make a difference to children living on the streets.

Command Paper - Measuring progress

This from Captain Deltic...

Celebrating 19 years of government meddling

John Major in 1993 - "British Rail is deeply inefficient"

Command Paper in 2012 - "The rail industry... remains unacceptably inefficient."

Progress indeed!

Command Paper 'great leap forward'

This from Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road...

Readers of Soviet Weekly's reports of party conferences in the 1950s will recognise the style of this extract from the Command Paper:

While promoting and protecting the achievements of recent years, we will now focus the industry on collaboration to achieve world-beating excellence in efficiency and in serving its customers – the taxpayer, passenger and the freight industry. Only by making sure everyone in the industry has clear objectives and aligned incentives will we be able to secure our objectives. Partnership working and driving behavioural change in the industry will be at the centre of our strategy for securing the savings we want.

Applause, prolonged and stormy applause, all stand, Cries of 'All power to the Coalition and Secretary Greening'.

Deltic rails at Deadwood's history rewrite

The mad Vulcan is at it again.

This near illiterate anti-rail rant from Redwood's blog:

Listening today to criticisms of the governemnt’s aim to get the UK railway system to a similar level of efficiency as contiental systems by reducing some 30% of cost, I was struck by people telling me our system is dearer becausee it is privatised. I seem to remember passanger numbers and freight volumes rising strongly, and subsidies falling, when it was fully privatised. Then costs and subsidies rose swiftly again ocne the main part of the railway, the track and signals were renationalised. The old nationalised monopoloy had a poor record with falling use, safety problems and high levels of subsidy.

Happily the Welsh national anthem mangling car-loon has been neatly fisked by Captain Deltic in the blog's comment section:

You claim, presumably from Conservative mythology that “the old nationalised monopoloy had a poor record with falling use, safety problems and high levels of subsidy”.

Fact. Between 1983 amd 1989/90 subsidy fell, at 1989/90 prices from £1,329 m to £587m.

Fact: Over the same period Government subsidy as a share of total passenger revenue fell from45% to 25%. Today it’s around 50%

Fact. Ridership increased from 18.3 bn passenger miles to 20.9bn (21.3bn in 1988/89.

Fact: Over the same period Freight tonnage was down slightly from 145.1 m tonnes to 143.1m (149.5m in 1988/89)

Fact: By 2000 when Railtrack was forced into adminstration passenger miles were 23.7 billion and freight tonnage lifted down to 95.4 million.

1989/90 is chosen deliberately because it marks the end of the economic cycle. Note that passenger ridership in 2000 had only just topped the 1988/89 peak.

Good effort and happy birthday Captain Deltic!

That is all.

Fares consultation - slapdash is the word!

This from Mrs A P Tis...

May I salute the Department for Transport for living up to its legendary reputation for attention to detail?

A quick perusal of the Fares & Ticketing consultation document, published on the DfT website yesterday afternoon, reveals incomplete sentences and sections at the bottom of several pages.

Naughty naughty!

If you were passenger and hadn't completed certain journeys you could expect a fine.

Can someone at Marsham Street please get a grip!

The future of railway Smart-ticketing - Exclusive

This from a Mr Rabid Burns...

I can exclusively reveal the details of the new DfT smart-ticketing systems that the Command Paper referenced.

This is the fruit of years of hard work by highly paid consultants and already has its own brand name - "IET" (or Intercity Express Ticketing).

Similar in size to Oyster cards the new IET smart-tickets will be rolled out across the network in coming months.

For ease of use the IET will be supplied with a handy pocket sized printer. Plug the printer into the ticket and it will seamlessly produce a small wood pulp based object, on which there will be impressions of words and numbers. These will suggest where the journey starts and ends, together with a use by date.

Passengers can also easily extend the range of their IET by purchasing a BiMode Plus module (a small car battery) that will power the new smart-ticket across areas of the network lacking electric power.

Phase 2 of the roll out is likely to see the printer and BiMode Plus complimented by a personal ticket gate - similar in size to an airport body scanner - for use at stations without gatelines.

All the above lightweight kit (140lbs) will be imported from Asia, assembled by Sid and Doris Bonkers in their Neasden shed and badged British Made.

I think you will agree that this innovative IET concept will be welcomed by passengers and place Britain once again at the forefront of railway ticketing!

UPDATE: This from ticketing expert @SWLines...

You'll need one for each owning group, as none of it will be interoperable.

Command Paper celebrates the markets!

This from Captain Deltic...

I note from section 4.67 of the Command Paper that:

Our preference would be that, building on the Competition Commission decisions and this work, operators and ROSCOs drive better value through a market-based approach.

So the ROSCOs are being encouraged to adopt market led pricing.

As in letting rolling stock fleets, which are in short supply, to the TOC offering the highest lease rental? (Probably not what DfT had in mind! Ed)

Railway Garden Competition - Tottenham Hale

Perhaps Clog Rail, with their home-grown expertise in water management, can do a little better than the previous franchisee?

NR turns to Ford... again for new Chairman

This from Stockmarketwire.com...

Professor Richard Parry-Jones is to be the next chairman of Network Rail.

It is his intention to appoint a non executive public interest director to its Board and implement a series of changes to its membership structure designed to better hold the Board to account.

Another former Ford man at the helm, following in the steps of Ian McAllister (hopefully his after dinner anecdotes won't be as dull! Ed)

ITSO in disarray as CEO departs

Good to see that the government's plans for smartcards are going well.

According to Modern Railways...

Michael Leach has left the smartcard organisation ITSO, where he was Chief Executive Officer.

And last night Captain Deltic tweeted...

ITSO CEO has resigned today and left with immediate effect.

Perfect timing!

What with today's Command Paper expected to focus on the benefits of ITSO and smart ticketing.

Manuel Cortes fires up the Quattro

Oh dear.

This from the leader of the TSSA today:

Manuel Cortes said: "If the local booking office goes, then the station itself will not be far behind it. Justine Greening must reject the siren voices of the train operating companies which want the freedom to close one in four of all booking offices.

"This will amount to a mini Beeching with hundreds of stations in rural areas facing the threat of long term closures altogether.

" An unmanned station is a less safe station, particularly for the elderly and young women travelling alone at night.

Unmanned?

Unmanned!

The politically correct term is 'unstaffed'!!

Shame on you Manuel, the sisterhood will be having your guts for garters!!! (shurely shome mishtake? Ed)

UPDATE: This from a Mr Le Carry...

Manuel?

Shurely Personuel?

Exciting new Eye avian competition launched

Time for an exciting new Eye competition!

Please study these two statements contained in recent press releases from the RMT and Labour tranport team:

The RMT said: "The idea of “deep alliances”, as a forerunner to infra-structure privatisation, is already being piloted on a joint operation on South West Trains and has long been demanded by the train operators as a way of seizing complete control and maximizing profits. In addition to a series of failed “mini-Railtracks” across the country, RMT also expects the Command Paper to confirm a series of other damaging and potentially lethal proposals (cont p94)..."

Maria the Eagle said: "Even though Ministers have run away from fronting up these policy changes, we now know the government's intentions for the railway and they are deeply worrying. In future, as a result of so-called deep alliances, a single regional manager will for the first time be accountable not just to Network Rail, but equally to private train company bosses. The creation of a set of mini-Railtracks will take us back to the days when decisions on infrastructure and maintenance were profit-driven."

Now using your skill and judgement see if you can guess what three word phrase is hidden in the picture below:


Do you know what it is yet?

Pointless signs - CrossCountry Voyager

DfT flounders for answers to railway reform

In advance of Friday's industry briefing on rail reform, government spinners have been hard at work.

In the FT today the Department unveiled its latest BIG idea...

Passenger trains along Cumbria's coast would be run by the state-owned body responsible for taking apart and cleaning up waste from civil nuclear plants under an offer made in response to government plans to overhaul rail policy.

Direct Rail Services, a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority that operates freight trains, has held talks with Cumbria county council on taking over the running of passenger services on the coastal branch line between Carnforth and Carlisle.

So let's get this straight.

The solution to the problems of the rail industry is to errr.... get a nationalised company to run the trains!

Well at least this one's British, but for how long?

ORR gives regulatory thumbs up to Alliances

This from the Office of Rail Regulation...

We support the concept of alliances and welcome their potential to add value in the rail sector, delivering benefits not only for the parties involved but also for rail users and taxpayers. We will help prospective alliance partners develop their plans and we welcome discussions - the earlier we are involved in these the better we will be able to help.

That is all, although My Learned Friends will no doubt wish to pour expensively (shurely, 'exhaustively'? Ed) over the details here.

UPDATE: This from another satisfied reader...

Not for the first time do I have to correct the illiterate content of this so-called blog.

In a blatant and ill-informed attacked on the legal profession, a fine body of men and women who are all that stands between the privatised rail industry and anarchy, you refer to them pouring - presumably a snide reference to the consumption of alcohol.

In my experience they spend long hours into the night poring over legal documents to ensure that the railway runs smoothly.

I remain your etc...
R.Slicker

It's a fair cop!

Man travels entire FGW network - by choice!

This from Inspector Blakey...

Would you mind giving a plug to my friend Ollie's charity fundraising tour of the FGW network?


He's aiming to cover the entire system this week whilst raising funds for Save the Children and CHICKS.

If anyone feels able to support this worthy endeavour details can be found here.

Mad but good effort.

Villiers vignettes - Rolling stock procurement

This from Cruella...

Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport pursuant to the answer of 1 December 2011, Official Report, column 1021W, on rolling stock, how much her Department will spend on new passenger rolling stock in each year of the current spending review; and to which franchises such rolling stock will be deployed.

Theresa Villiers (Minister of State)
holding answer 1 March 2012 - The Government do not directly invest in rolling stock. This is a matter for the train leasing companies.

Splutter!!!

Eurostar causes Catwalk Catastophe

Big disruption to Eurostar services following yesterday's OHLE problems in France.

Judging by media coverage the only people affected were numerous Luvvies returning from the Paris Fashion Show (Yawn! Ed).

Prize for the top headline goes to Malta Today...

Eurostar delay angers fashionistas

From comments on Facebook and Twitter, leading models, designers and fashion label faces, talked about the distress caused by the delay.


Where is Derek Zoolander when you need him?

Command Paper to be published Friday?

According to today's lobby briefing...

Justine Greening will publish the Government response to the Sir Roy McNulty report on Friday.

So now you know...

UPDATE: This from one or two others...

No, the Command Paper will be published on Thursday! (You pays your money you takes your choice... Ed.)

BTP now armed at major stations

Sad to say police officers with firearms are now set to become the norm at major stations.

As pictured at St Pancras on Friday...


Eye shares the concern of others, including the World's Greatest Living Transport Correspondent, about this development which does little to reassure and serves only to create a climate of intimidation and fear.

Although, to be fair, this particular BTP officer was charm itself, despite his clutching a device with the power to make quite a hole in one's diary...

UPDATE: This from the Archer...

I assume the officer in question was on riot patrol...

What with the soi disant 'veteran observer' and others making an emotional return to Derby post the IMechE Luncheon.