Historic signs - The Ghost of Clarity Past

A reader writes to say...

Dear Fact Compiler

As a devoted reader of your... (Get on with it! Ed).

Perhaps Eye should have an 'Historic Signs' section to compliment Pointless signs.

Obviously the pictures must originate from the railway of today, but the 'useful' information they contain must spring from our past.

Perhaps I could start with this York offering.

And here the useful, but dated, information.

Eye is won over. Make it so!

UPDATE: This from an Eye reader in Upside Down Land...

Not only dated but wrong!

Surely the LNER became part of British Railways in 1948 and only much later part of British Rail. 

Nice sign though and amazing that passengers couldn’t work out that it was dated info without a helpful sign. 

Why rail travel beats the rest!

This from the Railway Public Relations Office...

Reasons to be cheerful! 

Spring evening rainbow above field of newborn lambs. 

Through Pendolino carrage window, near Tring tonight.

It's better by train!

HS2 un-news from DfT - Offical

This from the Department for Transport...

Alison Munro re-appointed as Chief Executive of HS2 Ltd

Alison Munro has been re-appointed as the Chief Executive of HS2 Ltd, the independent company set up by the Government to deliver a high speed rail network between London and the North of England.

ENDS

Pointless signs - York cone shrine

This from @TonyVeitch...

One of my favourite signs. 

 I revisit this little shrine to signdom every so often.

Exciting new logo for Class 70 fleet

Pointless signs - High Wycombe

This from CU...

A rather fetching retro look to High Wycombe last night, attracting many admiring looks from commuters.

Sadly 40 years too late.

Villiers vignettes - another apology

This from Cruella, given in the House yesterday...

Theresa Villiers (Minister of State (Rail and Aviation), Transport; Chipping Barnet, Conservative)

I regret to inform the House that there was an inaccuracy in the answer I gave to parliamentary question 98207 on 5 March, Hansard, column 411W and subsequent comments made by the Secretary of State for Transport in debates held on 8 March, Hansard, column 1035 and 23 March, Hansard, column 1049 about how many miles of railway track were electrified between May 1997 and May 2010.

The correct answer is approximately nine route miles were electrified between May 1997 and May 2010, not 39 route miles as previously stated. This total does not include newly constructed railways.

How lucky we are to have a quality department of state like the DfT.

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

How long, oh Lord, how long?

How many more times does Theresa Villiers have to apologise to the house  for errors in data provided by her officials before the light dawns that perhaps said officials are not exactly on top of the job?  

UPDATE: This from the Lancastrian...

Further to the debate on electrified mileage...

 

Readers in possession of the relevant Quail maps or sectional appendices might care to add up the route mileage of Kidsgrove-Crewe (electrified in 2003) and Pelaw-Sunderland (electrified in 2002).

Pointless signs - Tisbury

This from @steinsky...

Single (short) platform - all trains stop same place, same platform.

RMT threatens BoJo with legal action

This from the RMT...

"RMT can confirm that we have today commenced a High Court action for defamation on Boris Johnson over his Not Ken Again poster campaign which falsely portrays our General Secretary Bob Crow as being part of a culture of political immorality and as having caused serious harm to the interests of people in London.

"RMT will be making no further comment and will be giving no interviews on this matter as it proceeds through the legal process." 

Ends

TfL unveils congestion and chaos map

So.

TfL have produced a website showing likely congestion hotspots during the Olympics.

Meanwhile a Mr Ouch writes...

These posters have appeared near my home in Bolton – 200 miles from London!

It looks like Londoners and visitors alike will need a healthy dose of the Blitz spirit during the days of chaos to come.

Perhaps better to ask: "Is your journey really necessary?".

UPDATE: Oh great joy!

There is a Get Ahead of the Games Twitter account: @GAOTG

Today it tweeted out these asinine missives:

"Brand new update: Our impact line tool shows impact on each tube line (busiest section, most affected, busiest dates) ow.ly/arj7X"

Impact line tool? WTF!

And this...

"New Feature: We now have a National Rail visualiser that shows you predicted busy periods during the Games ow.ly/arjj1"

National Rail visualiser? FFS!

Chaps, stop making up smartarse marketing terms for perfectly serviceable and well understood English words like 'congestion', 'delay' and 'map'.

That, or get a real job!

Pointless signs - Cross Country Reservations

This from the Cynic...

Several years after they were installed, the little LCD reservation screens on the Arriva XC HSTs are now finally working. 

Or rather, they are now all now displaying something. 

 The same helpful message in every case...

UPDATE: This from CU...

Not quite so pointless - these are seats that may be reserved by 'Ten Minute Reservation'.

Sit in one and someone could reserve it while you are warming the cushion for them!

Swiss show TOCs how to balance books

This from The Local, Switzerland's news in English...

A vast array of weird and wonderful items from the Swiss rail network's lost-and-found department is now on sale, including butt plugs, dildos and worn underwear.

That's quite enough Swiss lost property! Ed

Luvvies overwhelm London Bridge

This from Network Rail...

 

Good effort.

Results of lightning strike revealed

This picture, issued by @SW_Trains, shows the damage to a Wandsworth substation caused by yesterday's lightning strike.

Ouch.

UPDATE: Some more pictures of the damage at Linford St Power Substation from Network Rail...

Linford St supplies power to more than one NR Route (including Wessex and Kent). 

The Fire Brigade were called to deal with the fire resulting from the lightning strike. The accompanying thunder clap was heard across the Capital!

Traction power was restored at 22:04 (the lightning strike took place at 17:30) and this morning's peak ran as normal.

East Coast takes the PIS - Official

This from a Mr Swift (no, not that one)...

Anyone noticed the White Elephants along the ECML stations supposedly displaying all the delights of Real Time Train Information, Special Notices, Piss Poor Performance Figures and yes, Internet Access with a thermal printer!

This example is, or was, to be found at Retford.

Well progress indeed, having not worked for at least 12 months, the once beautiful pristine units, rusting away have now been replaced by a piece of tarmac, theft no, progress yes? 

One cannot help but think that the various franchise commitments to invest thousands in the greater flow of information to the public has seen money well spent!

Pointless signs - King's Cross/St Pancras

Pointless signs - Folkestone Harbour

This from RogerB...

At the seaward end of the Folkestone Harbour Branch. 

It looks as though it has been put up since it became impossible to get a train to the point where the sign could be read.

DfT prejudges ticket office consultation

Oh dear!

A leaked series of internal DfT emails about proposed ticket office closures have been published by the Evening Standard:

Larson prepared a draft statement which he emailed to Ruth Harper, senior civil servant at the Rail Fares and Ticketing Review Group at the DfT, on Thursday, 5 April 14.50.

It read: “The government has no plans to close ticket offices, but as ticket buying habits change, we expect train operators to consider how best to deploy their station staff to provide the most benefit to passengers. This will reduce the cost of running the railways for both fare payers and tax payers and help to end the era of inflation busting fare rises.

“We recognise that passengers can feel very strongly about ticket office opening hours, and before we could agree to any changes put forward by operators we would need to be confident that passengers would continue to enjoy ready access to ticket-buying opportunities.”

Ms Harper replies half an hour later at 15.19 stating; “Simon, We can’t say the Government has no plans to close ticket offices because we have an application from London Midland where the minister has already decided to approve some ticket office closures (it’s just not been announced yet while we’re concluding £ negotiations with LM) and there will be more of those in the future.

“If you take that out the rest is ok and your way of slipping in there that the initiative comes from TOCs not us is very neat.”

As this appears to prejudge a still open consultation on ticket office closures the Minister will have some explaining to do...

UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...

Credit where credit is due.

Theresa May appears to have lost a day from the Home Office calender, where as DfT appear to have gained a whole two months.

No doubt the forthcoming Judicial Review of the process will explain how other departments of state can get so far ahead of the curve?

IEP design finalised - Exclusive Eye picture

Virgin deflowered - Official

This very odd piece of PR puffery from Beardie Rail...

Virgin Trains is pleased to announce that ‘Penny’ is pregnant and expecting twins. ‘Penny’ is the 22nd of Virgin’s Pendolinos and is due to give birth in mid-May at Alstom’s H3 hospital located in the Longsight area of Manchester. Penny is doing well, but will also receive a full health check by Alstom’s engineers before being allowed back out on the main line, with her two new coaches in tow.

When released from the train hospital, ‘Penny’ is expected to be the tenth Pendolino to be running around with 11 carriages.

The news comes as ‘Penny’s’ friend, the ‘Virgin Lady’, now given a new identity of 390107, prepares to re-enter service tomorrow morning (19th April 2012) after receiving the H3 health-check and gaining two new vehicles. ‘Virgin Lady’ is the first of the original Pendolino sets to be increased from nine to eleven vehicles.

Evidently Penny is no longer a virgin...