Bad branding - Banbury

No longer the 'Arrows of Indecision'!

Welcome to Chiltern's Banbury station...


...home to the 'Arrows of Indeterminate-distance'.

Eye salutes NR timekeeping improvements

This just in from Tb...

On the day that Network Rails 91% timekeeping record is being questioned, I enclose proof that in fact they are under reporting their achievements.

The two circled trains shown on the Edinburgh arrivals this morning are hours early.


Clearly NR are to be congratulated and the doom sayers pooh poohed.

Railway Garden Competition - Welwyn Garden City

Number Crunching...

£6.2bn
Osborne's "age of austerity" spending cuts

£23.83bn
Network Rail's "carry on regardless" debt

UPDATE: Network Rail says £23.8bn debt is sustainable.

Eye understands that NR's Board is also confident it can nail jellies to the ceiling.

UPDATE: This from Ithuriel...

Network Rail's debt is sustainable out to 2020, provided:

a) Network Rail can meet its efficiency targets over the rest of Control Period 4

and

b) Network Rail continues to cut maintenance and operating costs year-on-year in Control Period 5 at the same rate as required in Control Period 4

and

c) The Government is happy for Network Rail's funding requirement to remain at the current £5.3 billion a year throughout Control Period 5.

Readers may note that these requirements are not quite all or nothing.

If there are no enhancements in the High Level Output Specification for Control Period 5 then a combination of a) and b), will allow the number in c) to be reduced.

UPDATE: This from Winnie the Pooh...

Despite being a bear of very limited brains even I can see that none of the above provisos are likely to be met.

Which means that NR's level of debt remains at a completely unsustainable level.

Bump, bump, bump...

Railway Garden Competition - Woking Down Yard

UPDATE: This from Shoegear...

Regular visitors to Woking note that, somewhat appropriately, this is where the 'Wet Spot Eliminator' Machine is frequently to be found in residence.

Railway Garden Competition - Sheffield again...

Pointless signs - Euston last night

Telegrammed by our Independent Expert
Lithuania here we come?

Baffled commuters on the 19.24 Euston to Milton Keynes yesterday faced the prospect of a magical mystery tour.


Or was this another DB takeover?

UPDATE: This from 5741 Duck...

notsuE nodnoL is a case of high quality contingency planning.

Presumably they're piloting right-to-left displays to be ready for when Israel decides to further extend its peace keeping activities in international waters.

Deltics rescue Scotsman - Official

This from Litchurch Lad...

Much excitement in Derby on Monday when this appeared in the local rag.


Has Captain Deltic taken a subs job at the Derby Evening Telegraph?

UPDATE: This from Leo Pink...

Isn't the curly headed moppet in white (back to camera centre) the young Captain?

Potters Bar - in memoriam

The Potters Bar Inquest opened today.



Lest we forget.

And whilst we are about remembering things.

This from former transport minister Steven Norris, who was then a non-executive director of Jarvis and who told BBC News:

"There is real prima facie evidence of sabotage".

Indeed not.

Lest we forget.

Dr Mike named as Civil Service top earner

Telegrammed by our International Correspondent
The coalition, bless it, has published a list of the highest paid civil servants in the UK.

And Lo! it does say:

Dr Mike Mitchell - Head of National Networks - DfT - £200,000 - £204,999

Mere baubles against Sir Moir's £609,000 last year, but more than enough for a few meals in East Coast dining cars (if there are still any running).

And a full £40k more than DafT's Permanent Secretary trousered!

Clearly Dr Death's salary has also kept pace with inflation - why less than five years ago the Daily Telegraph said he earned a mere £150k a year.

No matter.

Eye salutes a wise and well respected figure, who leads the industry from the front with great pots of cash (shurely 'great charisma'? Ed).

Bankingballs - Financing the ugly sisters

Good to see that the state owned banking sector is not averse to a bit of historical airbrushing.

The latest issue of RAIL carries an ad celebrating the "solutions and expertise offered by Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets" in helping finance 20 Class 70 locos for Freightliner.


But what's this?

Eye's man in the red braces sneers:

"The GE/Freightliner deal was done by HBOS and by people who left HBOS before Lloyds took over."

Please remember the value of your marketing can go down as well as up.

Lookalike - Flora and fauna

Eye sees that the soi disant 'veteran' observer has been spinning again (with a bowler tip to Mr Hind).

Nope. Eye neither!

UPDATE: This from our International Correspondent...

The wrong kind of seed?

Not a problem we usually associate with the soi-disant but prolific spokesman for Grand Central...

Railway Operations for Dummies...

Driver Potter appears to be offering a new course on Railway Operations over on his blog.

Does the IRO know?

First for getting out of freight

So. Farewell First GBRf!

And welcome Eurotunnel GBRf.

EGBRf sounds like a breakfast bap.

Although FGBRf sounded like indigestion.

UPDATE: Eye readers are invited to compare and contrast...

1st June 2010 - Financial Times

The head of the company that runs the Channel tunnel has criticised competitive conditions in the cross-Channel freight market, as he confirmed his company was buying the UK’s third-largest rail freight operator.

Mr Gounon criticised the record of the only established cross-Channel operator – a consortium of the UK arm of Germany’s DB Schenker and SNCF, the French state train operator.

19th August 2006 - Financial Times

EWS, the railfreight operator that jointly operates the only cross-channel railfreight service, has sought a radical change to the Channel tunnel charging regime in an effort to keep its services running.

However, the company fears that, after Eurotunnel, the tunnel's operator, rejected the proposed solution, it might have to end the services from November.

Just fancy that!

Belated birthday greetings Sir Moir!

This just in from Clarence Spad, Life President of the Young Railway Poets Society and ‘First’ with the news

LINES SLIGHTLY BELATEDLY WRITTEN ON SIR MOIR LOCKHEAD REACHING THE AGE OF 65 (25 APR)

Happy birthday Sir Moir
You are almost exactly
Four years younger
Than Kim Jong Il
The revered leader of North Korea

I hope you will not be thinking of retiring
Just as we know that Kim Jong Il
Has no plans to do so either

We are also hearing exciting rumours on Reading Station that First Great Western are organising a Son et Lumiere on the country end of Platform 5, Reading Station to commemorate the continuing outstanding leadership and 65th birthday of Sir Moir Lockhead.

We hope that the story we have been told is true that Mark Hopwood, dressed in a one piece body stocking in First Group colours and decorated with the First Group logo at key points of his anatomy, will give an incredible free style balletic mime of selected passages from that inspirational book, An Incredible Journey, the First Story.

Mark's backing dancers, known affectionately as the Hopettes, are, we are told, busily preparing their routines.

The lighting will be provided by two Mendip Rail Class 59s remaining stationary at Platforms 5 and 9 for the entire two hours of the show.

Brunel you should be living at this hour.

King's Place expects a visitor...

This from Bulldog Drummond...

Apparently Sir Alan Budd from the Office of Budget Responsibility is very keen to pay a visit to Network Rail's King's Place HQ.


As Sir Alan takes the Tube from Westminster to King's Cross no doubt the following questions will pass through his mind:

• Need the Government be concerned that the publicly underwritten debt of Network Rail will rise from some £23bn today to in excess of £31bn by April 2014 (equivalent to 35% of Ireland’s present sovereign debt)?

• Are the Government right to back a business model that supports a company that has to roll up interest due every year into borrowings? Although with a keen eye for detail Sir Alan will of course note that in 2013/14 it is projected that a small excess of income will make almost a £400m offset to an interest bill of £1.7bn in that year.

• Is Network Rail’s business model right to assume that after spending record sums on infrastructure over the next five years income will only rise by a projected 15% (from £5.9bn in 2009/10 to £6.7bn 2013/14).

• Is the ORR's reliance on the Regulatory Asset Base (RAB) well placed as a measure for calculating Network Rail’s soundness as a business. Or might it be better to have a system based on balancing current expenditure against future income as a means of assessing whether borrowing is prudent?

• Is it wise that only 25% of Network Rail’s current debt is in conventional UK Sterling bonds, whilst nearly half is index linked and the remainder is denominated in foreign currencies. Happily short term interest payments are low for these classes of debt, but a longer-term deterioration in the UK’s global financial position may hit hard an exclusively Sterling based business with such a borrowing profile.

No doubt upon meeting NR's Board such trifling concerns will be instantly swept away.

Or perhaps not…

UPDATE: This from Ithuriel...

But Network Rail's debt is incurred to pay for enhancements requested by Government.

So you can't blame the company for doing what it's funder specifies.

UPDATE: This from Bulldog Drummond...

Ithuriel, when not flitting around doing jobs for Gabriel in Paradise Lost, doubtless has had time to look at the Companies Act 2006 which requires directors of companies, 'to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members as a whole.'

It sets out a number of factors which directors must take into account to promote success.

Of particular interest is the need to take into account the likely consequences of any decision in the long term.

To say that 'Network Rail's debt is incurred to pay for enhancements requested by Government' misses the point.

If Network Rail is a company it must have a duty first to its own success and longevity and getting into massive and unrepayable debt doesn't look too smart a strategy.

Unless of course Ithuriel is suggesting that Network Rail isn't really a 'proper' company...

A busy weekend for NR's Board...

This just in from the ghost of Sir Peter Parker...

Being able to pass through doors I thought it worthwhile visiting this weekend's meeting of NR chiefs.

I expected that the topics that required such immediate and urgent attention might be Network Rail's quite astonishing debts or the recent setbacks to a number of major programmes or even the anticipated ORR performance assessment which I understand may be somewhat critical.

So. Imagine my surprise to read in yesterday's Sunday Times that no less a figure than Petrol-head Hammond has written to Ricky Haystacks, NR's Chairman, suggesting that NR bosses be "sensitive" about remuneration.

I tried to whisper, from beyond the grave, that NR's board should set a national example, in this time of great crisis, by agreeing to cut their pay back to BRB levels - index-linked of course.

However, I fear my waning powers on this earth had little effect on the weekend's debate.

Thameslink fleet - caped or not?

Much furious spinning yesterday following the suggestion on Radio 4's You and Yours that the new Thameslink fleet might already have succumbed to early DfT cost cutting.

Regular readers will recall that on the 24th May Eye revealed that:

The Department will not be going forward in 2010-11 with planned spend on the HLOS rolling stock schemes that have not already been contractualised.

But did this include new build for Thameslink?

You and Yours suggested it did - whilst Thameslink spinners said it didn't.

First blood went to the spinners when this appeared in Railnews yesterday:

THE Department for Transport has denied reports that government budget cutbacks have led to the cancellation of the order for new Thameslink rolling stock.

The DfT statement blames confusion over its announcement that orders under HLOS not already signed would be cancelled but that "...the major rolling stock orders for the replacement Thameslink fleet, as well as the new trains for Crossrail, are not included in the present HLOS totals."

But what's this?

According to then Rail Minister Tom Harris on the 30th April 2008:

Hansard - 30 Apr 2008 : Column 428W
Rolling Stock: Thameslink

Stephen Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether the new carriages for Thameslink announced on 9th April 2008 are in addition to the new carriages announced in July in the White Paper, Delivering a Sustainable Railway. [202209]

Mr. Tom Harris [holding answer 28 April 2008]: Some of the new vehicles for Thameslink are a component of the 1,300 new vehicles announced in July 2007 in the White Paper ‘Delivering a Sustainable Railway’ which committed a high level output statement (HLOS) for the railways. However, Thameslink and the HLOS have overlapping timescales. The HLOS vehicles are required to be delivered by March 2014. The final complete fleet of new Thameslink vehicles are required to be in service by December 2015.

And this from the DfT's own 'Rolling Stock Plan':

50. The vehicles required for the Thameslink Programme KO1 in 2011 are included in the total of 1300 new vehicles. It is expected that some of the vehicles required for the full KO2 service in 2015 will also be introduced during CP4.

So in short it already looks as if Thameslink will get less vehicles. Now time to truncate the route...

UPDATE: This from Sim Harris, Managing Editor at Railnews...

Actually, dear Fact Compiler, we do know about KO1.

But MOST of the proposed Thameslink fleet is KO2, isn’t it?

That’s why we said “major rolling stock orders”, not wishing to get too deeply into it. And KO2 is surely outside the “HLOS 1300” -- an increasingly mythical concept in any case.

But DafT is adamant that no decision has been made about the main fleet. And the HLOS cancellations are for this financial year only.

Anybody got any spare 319s? All right, I’ll get my coat.

UPDATE: This from PZT...

Tsk, tsk!

"Fewer vehicles", not "less vehicles"!

Because vehicles are countable objects...

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

Boys, boys,

I know that tables are tedious but all you need to know about the HLOS 1300 is available in the latest Informed Sources - available at all good newsagents.

The HLOS 1300 needed around 330 Thameslink vehicles to make up the total.

But with the delay in ordering the Thameslink fleet, the current target for financial close in December this years means that, at the most, 120 could be delivered by the end of the current Control Period.

What is more important is that Mr Miles has forced the Department of Transport into its first inexactitude just over a fortnight into the new administration.

Quite simply, we can't trust what we are told.

As for the order cancellations being for this year only.

Dream on.

Wolmar love bombs Petrol-head Hammond

Evidently the new Transport Secretary's interview in yesterday's Standard has done nothing to reassure Wolmar.

So enervated was the push biking hack by Petrol-head Hammond's disdain for cycling that he has issued a challenge via his blog.

Wolmar invites Transport Secretary Philip Hammond to:

"jump on your bike and come for a ride with me around the West End on a busy Friday evening and I will show you how its done".

As an enticement, the text is accompanied by this fruity image.


'Nuff said!

Wurzels enter train building market

This just in from Adge Cutler...

It is good to see that the strong representation of West Country folk in the English community around Zaragossa has been recognised by CAF when naming their new high speed train concept.

Train names nowadays are designed to be pronounceable in any European language, so the Wurzels will be entering next year's Eurovision song contest with a tribute to the CAF Ooarris.

Oi've got a bran new 'igh speed train concept.
An' you can have a total train service provisioon contract

UPDATE: This, unbelievably, from Long John Silver somewhere on the Spanish Main...

'Old 'ard, Adge me 'earty.

Them devil dogs of Spain be tryin' to publicise their Ooarris train to the in'ernational pirate community

'Ere be our website

UPDATE: This from Jake the Pake...

G'day, Cobbers

The Spanish community here in mutlicultural Oz reckon that the new train is named after there adopted Cultural Icon Rolf.