This from Anon...
As the Highland Main Line celebrates its 150th anniversary, I thought Eye readers might enjoy this image of three dubious characters propping up an Inverness bar at the weekend.
This from Payroll No 1144...
I note with interest that the Soi Disant Veteran Observer has posted a new photo of himself on linked-in today.
Unfortunately in this one he now seems to be lacking the sage advice of the dog!
As this is at least the second, if not third picture, of the Soi Disant with the same Minister perhaps he is hoping to create some sort of record?
Either way, rather than running vanity pics on Social Media sites perhaps he should update his own website, which still features a twice failed Mayoral candidate and a now very dead chair of the TSC.
Perhaps he has lost the password?
UPDATE: This from the Soi Disant Veteran Observer himself...
***NOT FOR PUBLICATION***
This is really beginning to p**s me off!
Stop referring to me as the "soi disant veteran observer"!
Mr Fact Contorter - it isn't actually very amusing anymore and I don't know anyone who finds this funny. (We do. Ed).
And by the way there is nothing wrong with my website, it is merely on 'deferred maintenance' and will soon by relaunched with even better... (sadly, owing to pressure of space, Eye is unable to publish the rest of this email from the soi disant 'veteran observer'. Ed).
This from Cardinal Allen...
Dear Odgers
Thank you for all your calls today asking us to help Network Rail find a successor to Graham Eccles.
Yes, he or she should be an 'operator'.
And no, recent experience in a front line operating role is not essential but is certainly desirable.
However, we wonder why NR has asked you to call us?
As they work alongside us and know us all much, much better than you do, surely NR's own people could have made exactly the same calls for a fraction of the cost?
Still in the Age of Austerity every penny counts.
Love, The Railway.
Eye understands that the Silver Fox is abandoning Network Rail!
Graham Eccles, for it is he, has apparently decided to take up the role of chairman at the TXM Group.
He will step down from the NR board in July.
Interesting...
UPDATE: This from the Silver Fox himself...
Nothing odd about my moving on. I'm getting on a bit and the time commitment at Network Rail, especially since becoming Chair of Remuneration Committee, is just more than I want to put in and there are other things I'd like to do with my life. TXM is something new for me and much more suited to an elderly gentleman.
Earlier this year David Wilson (ex Siemens) and I, along with another friend, bought a vineyard in the High Beaujolais. I'd like to start spending more time there which I can't do with the time commitment at Network Rail. David is an ideal partner, if he can flog £1.4 billion worth of trains to a Yorkshireman, he can certainly flog a few bottles of wine to our Gallic cousins.
Writing to you allows me to shamelessly plug the vineyard (see www.vatre.com), but it would also be nice to see old railway chums call in if they are out that way.
Regards G
Good news for fans of secretive and exclusive societies!
According to the Daily Telegraph:
The annual gathering of royalty, statesmen and business
leaders, will this week take place at the Grove Hotel, a golf resort in
Watford, Hertfordshire.
Older hands will of course remember that this venue was once BR's Management and Training Centre, where Organising for Quality courses were offered to all railway managers.
Perhaps there is a message in this for this for iDave and Gideot?
OfQ? Indeed.
Good to see that all this modernisation malarkey doesn't necessarily mean that our history gets scrapped.
This from the Beeb...
Part of London's oldest railway station is set to be rebuilt in Aberystwyth as part of a £10m plan
for a narrow gauge railway museum.
This from Battersea Bertie...
The 87 bus that runs from Westminster to SW London is not called the "civil service express" for nothing.
Last night I espied a young female "bureaucrat" falling asleep in front of her very own copy of the TSC "Lessons from the Intercity West Coast rail franchise competition" report!
At least this shows a degree of consistency.
Officials asleep both before and after the event.
This from Sue La Manche...
Ne pas jeter le bébé avec l'eau du bain!
As the rhetoric over our relationship with Europe grow ever louder, some of the more enlightened (!) ministers are seizing the opportunity to stand tough and demand greater concessions from Brussels in support of the UK economy and UK businesses.
They would have you believe this is something new, yet the UK has historically been rather successful at securing such amendments.
Take, for example, Directive 2011/88/EU, the so called Flexibility package of the Non Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM) Directive which allows UK businesses to order a limited number of new diesel locomotives, and to re-engine old locomotives at the previous IIIa emissions limit instead of the otherwise mandatory IIIb standard.
After much negotiation, the Directive was passed into European law in November 2011, triggering a three year period for orders to be placed.
Yet, rather that shout about the great concession we have secured, UK Government has just sat on its hands.
Halfway through the extension period, the Directive is still not transposed into UK law, to the intense frustration of those businesses looking to invest in new or modified equipment, yet who cannot, in the UK, gain the necessary clearance for their plans.
And, whilst they wait, what is the best advice that Government can offer to industry?
To get approval from the Belgian Safety Authority!
This from Derby Anoraknophobic...
Those boarding the 06:04 to St Pancras at Derby this morning were greeted by an announcement asking all passengers and staff to immediately vacate the train!
From the platform it was clear to confused passengers, from the excessive smoke around the power car, that there was a small engine fire.
As staff dealt efficiently with the incident and evacuated the platform an automated station announcement bellowed out reminding passengers that smoking was prohibited anywhere on the station premises!
There's a lesson in this somewhere...
Another belly flop from Maria the Eagle...
Labour's beleaguered Transport shadow opined...
“Commuters
facing inflation-busting fare rises will be outraged at the scale of
the bonus packages being enjoyed by a few at the top of the rail
industry. This comes on top of the Tory-led Government cutting taxes for
the most well off while millions pay more.
“Ministers must
now act and make clear that bonuses on this scale are simply not
appropriate in a company that receives nearly four billion pounds of
taxpayers’ money every year."
Eye supposes it is just too much to ask for Maria to actually understand the industry that she mouths on about?
It is ORR that requires Network Rail to have a 'management incentive plan' (bonuses in Maria speak) not government!
And it will be remembered that ORR is not part of government - the clue is its role as an 'independent economic regulator'.
No matter.
Of course if we are looking round for someone to blame for NR's bonus culture perhaps we might focus on the party in government when the company was actually set up?
Not much from Maria on that one, eh!
Exciting news for fans of Platform Edge Doors! (shurely Platform Edge Designs? Ed)
This from 'Northern Spirit'...
Obviously the standard yellow line with white platform
edge is not sufficient at Dewsbury (this is the slow line with fast
trains in this direction using the through line).
.jpg)
This from JT19...
Although these are some weeks old it appears that there has been a good start to the new growing season at Birmingham New Street..
This from Anonymous Please...
I thought Eye readers might enjoy this sign seen at Brundall Station in Norfolk last week.
This from Joseph-Michel Montgolfier...
Not really a pointless sign...
This from The Man in Room 205...
Given recent snaps of industry Brompton bikes, I thought you’d appreciate a picture of my SWT Brompton decidedly off region in my office at London Marylebone (Class 67’s & MK III’s sadly out of shot, as I know this blog appeals to those with a ‘professional interest’).
A welcome return for that Eye hardy perennial - the Railway Garden Competition!
This from the Wicked Weaver...
The Fact Compiler's latest column in Passenger Transport published on the 10th May...
Posts
