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'Nuff said!
Hulleys’ Closure - My Thoughts
5 months ago
Friday, 11 December 2009
How the media works...
Thursday, 10 December 2009
LU leads way in motivating staff to communicate
This from bitterwallet with a bowler tip to Is 1A03 out of Chester yet, Bert
The platform announcer at Farringdon refused to stop talking for nearly half an hour, giving a blow-by-blow account of what was occurring.
Follow the link to hear it in all its glory.
The guy's a natural - who needs The X Factor?
UPDATE: This from A Despairing Member of Staff...
I note your post on the quality of LUL Passenger annoucements; is there any chance of SWT using this gentlemen on their services in the future because I for one have had enough of Digital Doris telling me to "please take my personal belongings with me when I leave the train."
What other belongings would she like me to remove? Public belongings, perhaps? Does she honestly believe that I boarded the train carrying a bench I stole from the park? Or perhaps she means that I may leave the train with belongings which in actual fact belong to persons other than myself?
Please could someone have a word with Lord Carrier-bag of Double-Decker; call it a Christmas request from his chums at the sharp end.
Darling announces 200 earlier vehicles - again!
Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Exciting news from the Chancellor's Pre Budget Report...
Introducing a green stimulus – ensuring part of the fiscal stimulus supports low-carbon growth and jobs by accelerating £535 million of capital spending on energy efficiency, rail transport, and adaptation measures. 76,000 low income households will benefit earlier from better heating and energy efficiency, up to 200 new rail carriages will be delivered earlier and 27,000 homes will benefit sooner from flood defences (cont. p94)
Earlier than what?
And could those 200 carriages refer to to the 202 DMU vehicles announced in similar terms in last year's Pre-Budget Report and subsequently abandoned.
We'd ask DfT if we thought the press office would understand the question.
We'd ask Stephen Hammond to raise it in Parliament, if we thought he would understand the question.
But as we suspect it's a cut and paste job from last year's Pre-Budget Report we'll do nothing but bury our head deep in our hands and weep.
After all does anyone believe a word that the 2009 Pre-Budget Report contains?
UPDATE: This, amazingly, from Hammond's 5th Surgeon...
Has 222 been on the Christmas gin?
The reason why the reference to 200 new vehicles looks like a cut'n'paste from the 2008 PBR is because it is from the 2008 PBR!
Not even this Chancellor would be craven enough to try and get away with the same nonsense twice... surely?
Lord Adonis flogs off Kings Lynn station car park
Not many outside the industry know that the British Railways Board still exists, albeit in a residuary capacity.
Known, surprisingly enough, as British Railways Board (Residuary), it is the repository for much of the former nationalised industry's liabilities, in particular claims relating to industrial disease - asbestosis, emphysema and other unpleasantness suffered as a consequence of working on the railway.
It is also tasked with the management and disposal of the industry's remaining land and buildings, which are surplus to the needs of the operational railway.
In most cases this relates to disused tunnels, bridges and viaducts, old track formations, abandoned goods yards and the like - which today's railway has no interest in.
Where possible BRB(R) tries to sell these disused assets off - raising a couple of bob in the process for HMG and getting shot of the liability at the same time.
The BRB(R) is chaired by Doug Sutherland, the former SRA's finance director, and he reports directly to the Secretary of State.
So far so good.
And mostly the BRB(R) does indeed do a pretty good job.
But there are exceptions.
Take the overspill car park at Kings Lynn for example.
Almost four years ago a 96-space overspill car park was built on a plot of land owned by BRB(R).
The BRB(R) has now decided to sell that land, complete with overspill car park, and it has been entered into a Residential Auction to be held by Allsops next Tuesday the 15th December (Lot 83)
The sale could raise as much as £400,000 for the Treasury, which in these fiscally challenging times is not be sniffed at.
After all the BRB(R) is merely fulfilling its remit.
However, according to the BRB(R)'s website:
Land is only disposed of when it has been agreed with the Department for Transport that there is no need for it to be retained for future railway purposes.
Surely a well used overspill car park serving a busy station like Kings Lynn is very much a railway purpose and it ought to be retained for use today, let alone in the future?
Therefore, it is unimaginable that the Department for Transport (prop. Lord Adonis) could have sanctioned the sale of the land to a developer who will not have the interest of rail passengers in mind.
So Eye wonders whether the Noble Lord is paying lip-service to modal shift or whether he continues to be badly advised?
The buck stops with you My Lord - what will you do?
UPDATE: This from the saintly Driver Joseph Locke...
After reading your item on the Kings Lynn car park, I turned to the alliteratively titled section 6.46 ("Prioritising projects and programmes") of the Pre-Budget Report.
The section where it promises to save £170 million by (among other things) increasing the capacity of station car parks.
I wonder if the BRB(Residuary) has read it yet?
UPDATE: This from Charles Yerkes...
Forget whether BRB(R) has read it.
Has the Department for Transport, they approve land sales.
Lord Berkeley bigs up Hammond at RFG lunch
Is ace railfreight lobbyist and Labour peer, Lord Berkeley, mellowing with age?
Despite harbouring republican sympathies Lord B had secured the services of Her Majesty's very own Scots Guards to lead revellers in a medley of Carols at yesterday's Rail Freight Group Christmas Lunch.
The canny political operator had also invited shadow Rail Minister Stephen Hammond MP to address members before luncheon.
There was a collective choking on bread rolls when Lord B confidently predicted that Hammond "would make a very good Secretary of State"!
Of course the wily old fox was clever enough to add... "or opposition spokesman".
UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...
Hammond may not have endeared himself to any railway hacks present.
He told a joke about five surgeons discussing who in the industry was easiest under the knife.
The punch line had the last saw-bones saying he preferred operating on railway hacks; as they had neither heart nor backbone and their lips and ar$eholes were interchangeable...
UPDATE: This from the Lobby Correspondent...
Could this be the same Stephen Hammond who was observed entertaining one Roger Ford in the the cafe area of Portcullis House earlier this year, in what was clearly an unsuccessful attempt by the good Captain to explain the break down of the 1300 (sic) vehicles in the HLOS?
I think we should be told!
UPDATE: This from NR's Internet Rapid Rebuttal Unit...
'Bigs up'?
Tfc will be 'repping his endz', next.
UPDATE: This from 5741 Duck...
You say that Lord Berkeley is a "cany political operator".
Is that because they frown on whips in the House of Lords?
Thank you 5741. Noted and corrected!
Eye suggests how to improve value from the railway
Exciting news from the Department for Transport!
DafT is undertaking a study into: Improving value for money from the railway.
According to the department's website blurb the study will:
...examine the overall cost structure of all elements of the railway sector and to identify options for improving value for money to passengers and the taxpayer while continuing to expand capacity as necessary and drive up passenger satisfaction.
Eye suggests that the Department starts this study by examining its own role in recent doomed or about-to-be-doomed rolling stock procurement exercises, where millions have been wasted with nothing to show for it (eg IEP, the cancelled DMU project, the pointless and very expensive Coco inquiry into Roscos, etc... ).
There's a good £50m of waste identified before we even begin to look at the debacle of franchising.
Sadly turkeys don't vote for Christmas so expect the usual Whitehall whitewash.
UPDATE: This from Ithuriel...
By far the best way to improve value for money on the railways would be to bring back Tom Winsor as the Waste-Finder General.
First for quality branding
Telegrammed by our Independent Expert
First no drivers - now no paint...
This quality offering seen at Agincourt International on Tuesday.
East Coast blows sugar up the Noble derrier...
This with a bowler tip to Anon.
Read carefully...
We are not worthy!
UPDATE: This from A N Other...
As it took over a year to get the EPOS to work at all, I expect we may have this treat for a while.
Of course it may be easier just to change the plaque on the Marsham Street door.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
SatNav directs walkers on to the mainline!
This just in from transport hack and author Andy Roden...
A good friend of mine was given a whizzy satellite navigation system by his employers to help him find his way by road to the various bits of the rail network in Devon and Cornwall he has to work on (despite the fact that he knows the county’s rail network as well as everyone).
After a meeting in Bristol he thought he’d try this new box of tricks out on the train back to see what it could do.
Initially it was very confused, constantly trying to point him onto the nearest road, but around Par my mate decided to try its walking function and asked it to give him directions to Penzance from the railway station.
Lo and behold, it suggested he walk all the way down the Cornish Main Line as far as Hayle, where it finally opted to send him on the main road back to Penzance, presumably having dodged the HSTs, Voyagers and Sprinters along the way.
It’s a bit worrying though – after hearing about people driving down railway lines because they’ve had their brains surgically replaced by Satnavs, is the next thing a plague of hikers getting confused between country tracks and Country Tracks?
FGW and Arriva XC drivers beware!
Monday, 7 December 2009
Southern abolishes 'Boxing Day' bank holiday - Official
This just in from Sussex Driver...
Southern are being a bit naughty and refusing to recognise the 28th Dec as a Bank Holiday and so the brothers aren't best pleased.
Cue a ballot for industrial action... and the results from ASLEF (633 Votes Cast)...
Yes 94.8%
No 5.2%
Big Bob is also balloting his members over the same issue.
Happy Christmas!
Perhaps cost conscious Capt Permatan is merely being careful, having just splashed out on a brand new Aston Martin and all?
Cheeky Merseyrail slips one in!
This from Rudi over at Merseyrail...
Our walk-on fares aren't quite the same level as those for "Newquay to Kyle of Lochalsh" but then your whole family can travel with us for a Fiver!
During December up to two adults and three children can travel anywhere on Merseyrail's Northern or Wirral lines for only £5 on any Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday after 15:00hrs.
This great offer will be valid until 30th December 2009. For more details, ring our customer relations team on 0151 702 2071 or ask a member of staff.
And there is free parking at our stations too...
If you're travelling to Merseyside over the Christmas period why not take up Rudi's seasonal suggestion.
Not only is the train fast, cheap and easy, it's also less likely to be jacked up on bricks when you want to go home.
Arriva brings together staff and passengers
Exciting news from Arriva Cross Country
Judging by traincrew announcements aboard an XC service to Edinburgh this morning the introduction of new catering rosters has not gone well.
Parched and starving passengers certainly shared this view.
DfT cancels talk on how to order new trains
Telegrammed by the Archer
Sad news from the Derby Railway Engineering Society.
A planned lecture on how to order new trains was threatened with cancellation when the booked DfT speaker unexpectedly withdrew.
Eye cannot imagine why.
However, good news.
Apparently some chap called Wormsley (subs - please chk spelling) from an outfit called Portaloo (ditto) has manfully stepped into the breach.
What a shame that DRES members will now have to listen to someone from an organisation with no experience of succesfully introducing new trains (shurley shome mishtake. Ed)
UPDATE: This from our man at 222 Marylebone Road...
I understand that this chap Malmsey works for a ROSCO, so he must be well placed to lecture on DfT Rail's procedures for not ordering trains while spending massive sums of money on consultants.
No doubt balance will be maintained by your friendly local rolling stock consultancy, which is receiving squillions for helping with the late running Thameslink trains procurement and will no doubt be there in force to defend its client?
UPDATE: This from a Mr Walmsley...
I think you maybe referring to a talk on DfT procurement that was due to take place in Derby tomorrow.
Unfortunately the advertised speaker has been called away on family business (so no jokes there).
The funny bit is who is standing in – me!
I will be talking about new DMUs but I can’t really imagine not referring to the previous subject just a tiny little bit...
Ian's talk on 'New DMUs – Class 172 Turbostars & Parry People Movers' will take place at 19:00 tomorrow (8th December) at the Derby Conference Centre, London Road, Derby.
Germans resolve National Train shortage
Whilst our beloved Department for Transport vacillates over new rolling stock orders, our Teutonic friends have solved the problem.
This from the Police Oracle...
The six-seater train - made out of garden furniture and salvaged train parts - was powered by an electric motor and even had its own refreshments car in the shape of a crate of beer.
Vorsprung durch technik as they used to say.
UPDATE: This from a Mr Fergy-Lee...
Here at the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, we have been providing innovative transport solutions for over half a decade! Please see attached.
‘Muriel 2’ was our first piece of motive power and still exists somewhere in our extensive fleet. It is a 1-A petrol electric and is capable of several miles per hour.
Frankly, anything above a crawl and you feel very close to God…
Sunday, 6 December 2009
God bothering in Advent
This from The Railway Magazine...
A website promoting Christmas Carol services across the network can be found at railwaycarols.co.uk
Meanwhile Railnews invites railway staff to attend:
The Transport Benevolent Fund rail staff carol service at 12:30 on Wednesday 16th December at St Mary's Somers Town, Eversholt Street, near Euston Station (NW1 IBN).
Carols will be lead by the London Transport Choir and the readers are Len Porter, Arthur Leathley, Roger Ford, Tom Pulford, Sim Harris and Kevin Groves (if that isn't enough there are mince pies and refreshments after the service).
No tickets required, just turn up.
This for those unable to make it...
The Fact Compiler looks forward to meeting one or two Eye readers on the 16th...
Saturday, 5 December 2009
Royal visit to Workington North at speed
Forget London to Brighton in two minutes!
Here, courtesy of Network Rail, is the building of the emergency station at Workington North in just one minute and 43 seconds.
Apparently you can also see the visit of our future Sovereign at around the 49th second.
A very good effort!
And Eye congratulates all involved.
But can it be long before Messrs Hall and Green complain about the lack of a coffee shop?
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