Charidee

Wolmar is running a half marathon on October 12th for the Railway Children charidee.

He writes: "I know these things are a pain but it is a really worthwhile charity that helps runaway and homeless children at stations across the world.

It is really easy to give as I have set up a just giving page, and you get a free copy of my latest book if you give £75 or more.

For details of the Railway Children visit their website."

The Fact Compiler wonders how much we would need to sponsor him to keep on running?

Visions

***Iowa Pacific Holdings plans to reinstate all of the Weardale railway's 18 miles of track by the end of 2009.***

Read the BBC story here

A bridge too far?

Alas, all appears not to have gone well at today's Railway Forum annual conference.

Dr Mike "Death" Mitchell was given a speaking slot and invited to answer questions afterwards.

Death, the rudest man on the railway, left the event post haste to crawl back under his Marsham Street stone leaving questions unasked, let alone unanswered.

Meanwhile event sponsors, Mouchel, were given two bites at the presentation cherry.

Unfortunately their second slot, on 'bridge maintenance', proved so exhilarating that several delegates were seen to drill out their own fillings in a desperate attempt to remain awake.

Richard Brown, Railway Forum Chairman, may well be nursing sore ears tonight, judging by the number of delegates keen to bend them with less than complimentary views of the event.

Integrated control?

Not a good day for Network Rail Southern and SWT.

Local press in Hampshire are up in arms following the electrocution of an escaped shire horse after NR refused to turn off the juice.

Read the Aldershot News & Mail story here.

It also emerges that the driver's request to isolate power was declined despite three people, endeavouring to catch the horse, being trackside.

Aslef are rightly concerned.

Fat Controller?

Anglo Polish Railway website 'Behind the Water Tower' has scoured Geoff Hoon's website to come up with the following pictorial hostage to fortune.

The Fact Compiler hopes that the press doesn't get hold of a copy.

Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy

Tim Collins and Robin Gisby have a lucky escape!

I blame the government

Beautiful!

Ones to watch

The Tories have also announced a reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet.

Not many moves, but interestingly they have chosen to create a Shadow brief for Energy and Climate Change:

Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change - Greg Clark MP

Shadow Minister for Climate Change - Greg Barker MP

Shadow Minister for Energy - Charles Hendry MP

Their opposing numbers on the Government front bench are:

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change: The Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP

Minister of State - Mike O'Brien MP

Minister of State - Lord Hunt of Kings Heath OBE (jointly with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs); and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State - Joan Ruddock MP

A nice long list of names that uber-consultant Jim Steer and Greengauge21 can get their teeth into.

Lords to the slaughter

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Dominating transport debates in the Upper House are the feared Railway Peers, masters of the Parliamentary Question.

For some time these latter day Marcher Lords, roaming the wasteland between Government and Railways, have been looking for an opponent worthy of their steel.

So hapless is the Government's Spokesmen in the Lords, Lord Bassum of Brighton, that the Railway Peers have started feeling sorry for him, as DafT sends him into battle with yet another feeble brief.

But presumably, new Rail Minister, Lord Adonis will now be press ganged into delivering these cods of wallop.

Buy your tickets now

Loved by Aphrodite

What is the industry to make of the appointment of Lord Adonis as the Minister of State for Transport.

As the DafT web wonks have still to include his details on their site it falls to The Fact Compiler to supply the necessary background details.

According to those who have worked with him he is "obsessive about detail" to the extent that he is a "micromanager".

So far so bad.

However, he is also "his own man" and "master of his brief" - so will not be hoodwinked by Officials.

More good news.

Contrary to today's Daily Telegraph story that he has not "shown any interest in transport", Railway Eye can reveal that he is in fact "passionate about railways".

As may be witnessed by his review of Wolmar's recent book 'Fire and Steam' in Prospect Magazine.

He is also a great fan of 07:30 meetings - looks like the DafT numpties will have to up their game.

UPDATE: At the end of his review of Fire and Steam Lord Adonis adds:

"The big debate for the future is if and when High Speed Two and Three are to follow".

Well my Lord. Perhaps you can now tell us?

Rest of the pack

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT:

Minister of State - Lord Adonis

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State - Jim Fitzpatrick MP

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State - Paul Clark MP

Vice squad

Legendary BR PR supremo, Alan Marshall, has joined the ranks of Railway Eye readers.


Alan, writing in the latest Railnews, uses a quote from our very own Brochet to sign of his comment piece on the proposed redevelopment of Birmingham New Street Station.

The Fact Compiler is happy to confirm that there are currently no plans to add 'Telegrammed by The Vice Marshall' to the growing list of Railway Eye bylines.

Harris speaks!

Tom Harris has responded to the post about the DfT website.

View Tom's comment here.

For some reason blogger isn't showing responses to posts - if there are any technically savy readers of Railway Eye able to offer assistance it would be appreciated...

Shameless

Industry pundit Christian Wolmar has offered his thoughts on the appointment of Geoff Hoon as Secretary of State for Transport.

Wolmar asks: "I wonder how many people in the street would be able to name him from a photograph - probably fewer than 5 per cent".

He then goes on deliver the following damning judgement:

"I think it was the way in which he seemed to send troops into Iraq to be killed when he was defence secretary that got my goat the most. He seemed - or conveyed the impression - not really to care or be aware of the import of what he was doing. Certainly he was not going to take responsibility for it."

As a service to the industry and to help with recognition of Gende Homo in the street The Fact Compiler offers the following clip from You Tube:



The man has no shame - he should get on well with Dr "Death" Mitchell at the DfT.

Pharisees

It's now over 38 hours since Tom Harris was relegated to the back benches.

He ceased to function as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport on Friday and according to his blog the Red Box was collected by courier this morning.

Meanwhile the DafT website continues to show the following:

So we'll have less sanctimonious crap from the Department about the railway failing to provide customers with up to date information please.

True grit

Industry hard man Captain Deltic has no time for sentiment.

Whilst the rest of the industry was busy commiserating with the former rail minister the good Captain stuck the boot in.

October 4, 2008 at 5:36 pm

"Yes, you were an excellent figurehead minister, did a great job on supporting exports, and spoke up for the industry wittily and well. But in my book you failed to get a grip on your directorate. This is, of course, par for the course and I don’t expect any better from your successor. But I for one hoped for more after our first meeting when you came into the job."

Perhaps the Captain's intervention will create a pearl of great value. Alternatively perhaps he's just being contrary?

Strachen to Oz

Peter Strachen is heading down under.

Antipodean railway site Rail Page offers the following from NR's intranet posted Friday:

"Peter Strachan, route director, is to take up a new position running the entire public transport system of Brisbane and south east Queensland, Australia. Peter will take up the new position as chief executive officer of Translink Transit Authority in February 2009."

The search is on for a new Midlands route Director.

Railway thumbs down

Jeremy Candfield, of supplier organisation the Railway Industry Association, has also shoved his head above the parapet.

He writes on Tom's blog:

October 4, 2008 at 4:34 pm

"Deeply disappointed. The railway needs and respects your common sense, wisdom and obvious commitment. You have left a hard act to follow; we will miss you."

As the scaredy-cat industry wouldn't normally say boo to a goose the growing list of railway names mourning Tom's departure is beginning to sound like a vote of no confidence in Gordo's reshuffle.

Damned lies and statistics

A quick word of thanks to our readers, and those who link to this site, for helping to grow Railway Eye's readership.

Since the 13th of May 2008 Railway Eye has received 17,030 visits from 5,286 unique visitors.

Apparently you have viewed 28,218 pages in total.

No, I don't understand it either but that's what Google analytics says so it must be true.

Named and shamed

Chris Paul, the Mancunian smelly sock blogger, blames Railway Eye for the downfall of Tom Harris!

What a Blot on Brown's Copybook

Off the fence

For several years now the Railway Forum has been near invisible.

However, the Forum's Director General, Paul Martin, today put his 'cohones on the line' by posting a public message of support for Tom Harris on the former Minister's blog.

It reads:

"So sorry to hear this. I’ve greatly enjoyed working with you and genuinely feel that the rail industry has lost a great champion and friend. The whole industry has seen you as the most effective Rail Minister in memory and we feel that your achievements richly deserve promotion in government rather than what has happened."

The Fact Compiler applauds the Railway Forum's Director General for coming "to bury Caesar, not praise him".

But was this wise? Such off message comments do not play well in every quarter.

The temperature at the first meeting between Gende Homo and the Railway Forum may be somewhat cool.