Railway Garden Competition - Bishop's Stortford

Exclusive - IEP on test!

Exclusive Eye video of Mr Kipling's genius bi-mode project on test at Birkhill...

That is all.

ATOC announces record Tractor Production stats

The Supreme Committee of the Amalgamated Train Operating Collective has announced the following:

• Train companies are providing 574,071 extra seats today, operating over 4.2 million seats in total.

All citizens are to immediately join with their co-workers in celebrating this monumental achievement by the people's railway!

And in other news, grain production is up 25%.  

Railway Garden Competition - Altrincham

This from a Dr Jekyll...

Photographed past week at Altrincham Station. despite these being the Metrolink platforms they are owned and maintained by Network Rail. 

Perhaps the yellow trams known locally as bananas are trying reproduce in the undergrowth!

Railway Garden Competition - Ravenglass

Railway Garden Competition - Dean Forest Railway

Pointless Signs 2012 - Games Edition

So farewell Digital Boris!

TfL have pulled the automated messages featuring the Mayor which have encouraged Britons to abandon their Capital in droves.

No matter.

Meanwhile perhaps the Pink Police can now deal with the following:

• At Waterloo enormous signs tell you to walk to Charing Cross station to get the train to ...er... Blackheath. Has no one heard of Waterloo East?

• The authorised route from Waterloo to the Olympic Park seems to be to walk to Embankment and then take the District line to West Ham and walk again. Has no one heard of the Jubilee Line? Are they really expecting families with small children to take such a lengthy and tough route?

• At St. Pancras International the signs for the Javelin trains point towards the Eurostar arrivals area from both directions – yes they really do! Obviously the staff are totally peed off with people complaining about the mis-direction as some of the arrows have now been covered over with bits of pink paper!

• At KXSP underground concourse (the one by the entrance to the Met and Circle lines) there is a big sign pointing onto the underground for the Olympic Park! The posters correctly tell you to use the Javelin service.

Come on guys. There is still time to fix this.

Royals back High Speed Rail!

Good to see Her Majesty the Queen's granddaughter backing High Speed Rail!

Go, Zara, go!

Mad Vulcan opines on railfreight

This from the outer reaches of planet Redwood...

The cross country and long haul railway is probably most productively used for freight. The railway needs to be more interested in single wagon  marshalling and single load  business. Rail freight has grown since privatisation, and there has been improvement in the offer. The old nationalised industry was only interested in trainload contracts. A whole generation of new business parks was built with motorway access instead of branch line connections to the railway as a result.

Highly illogical, captain.

UPDATE: This from Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road...

Wisconsin Central Lives!
 
The Vulcan has clearly been talking with EWS founder Ed (all American) Burkhardt who seemed to think that the 'Mom 'n' Pop' shortline operating pholosophy would transform a modern European freight railway.
 

Railway Garden Competition - Birmingham New Street

Pointless signs - York

Railway Garden Competition - Crewe

This from Andrew E...

A fine Railway Arboretum!

Is Crewe perhaps going for Gold?

DfT economises with others IPR

This from Our Man by the Photocopier...

I have been reading the Great Western ITT, which finally limped into the platform on Friday having been delayed at Didcot by the late running gold-plated IEP.

It includes these words: "This document is subject to copyright. Neither this document, nor any part of it, nor any other information supplied in connection with it, may be published, reproduced, copied or distributed in any way except with the prior written consent of the Department." 

But the last page suggests that intellectual property rights are not always at the top of the agenda in Marsham Street:

 Just fancy that!

Pointless signs - Leeds

Railway Garden Competition - Hacking back NR debt

This from a Mr William Dargan...

While emptying out my spam folder, I came across this gem:

If a 1 litre tub of Buddleia is worth £9.99, surely this means Network Rail is sitting on a goldmine?

Railway Garden Competition - Crewe

Oh go on then...

Eye wishes good luck to all those involved with the Olympics!

Railway looks after those who also serve

Good news from ATOC!

National Rail companies have finally been allowed to join TfL in granting gallant service personnel, involved with the Olympics, free travel on rail services to and from Games venues.

And quite right too!

Eye understands that despite the willingness of the industry to recognise the contribution made by service men and women the MoD remained to be convinced.

Perhaps such generosity from private sector contractors is not usually encountered by inhabitants of the Main Building?

No matter, the offer has been accepted.

Is this the first time that Petrol-head Hammond has helped the railway celebrate anything positive?

Alycidon amidst the IEP excitement

This from a Mr Dickens...

A sight to stir the blood - Alycidon nearing Werrington Junction, just north of Peterborough, this morning.

Eat your heart out Captain Deltic!

Fleet reliability will be key for IEP

This from Ithuriel...

With DfT highlighting the importance of reliability in the IEP contract announcement, here is a list of today's Top 10 most reliable fleets on the national network.

(With thanks to an irate 'Captain of the Golden Spanners' for correcting the earlier version - so this with added Ford Imprimatur!) 
 

Ranking	Operator	Fleet	Maker	Miles per 3 min delay
1	South West Trains	Class 458	Alstom	105,761
2	South West Trains	Class 159/0	BREL	82,053
3	London Midland	Class 350/2	Siemens	75,315
4	South West Trains	Class 159/1	BREL	70,240
5	South West Trains	Class 158	BREL	62,932
6	London  Midland	Class 350/1	Siemens	58,652
7	South West Trains	Class 444	Siemens	51,369
8	South West Trains	Class 455	BREL/GEC	40,710
9	Cross Country	Class 220	Bombardier	38,463
10	c2c	Class 357	Bombardier	37,840

Eye congratulates all the above manufacturers.

UPDATE: This from Button Moon...

I was just wondering if any of your esteemed readers could extend the table of manufacturers’ performance to include Messrs. Hitachi, who already have a fleet of trains operating in the South East? 

(Sadly, in the interest of fairness, Eye is unwilling to extend the range of the above table to include lesser performing fleets as Bombardier and Siemens have had quite enough free publicity for the reliability of their rolling stock already. Ed)

UPDATE: This from Deep Purple...

Further to the top ten table, the ‘Owner’ column appears to have been omitted.

This is at least as important as the ‘Maker’ and would make interesting reading, 7 of the top 10 and all 5 of the top 5 being Porterbrook fleets.

Derby may not build trains like it used to but Derby can certainly manage these assets better than the rest.