They said six years. Is this it?

So Network Rail have confirmed that they won't make their Control Period 3 efficiency targets.

According to the FT...

The company that owns Britain's rail network has missed its target to cut costs over the past five years, according to preliminary estimates, fuelling calls for rail bosses to forgo their six-figure bonuses.

But what's this?

Naughty Network Rail says the reason it missed its efficiency targets was "largely because of track renewals".

However, there is good news.

"We are aware of the challenges ahead on track renewals and are working on a number of initiatives to reduce the cost of carrying them out."

What could this mean?

Surely not bringing renewals back in-house.

UPDATE: This from our man at 222 Marylebone Road...

Old news is bad news?

What is the Pink 'un on about today, treating Network Rail's failure to meet efficiency targets as some new revelation?

Full details of the shortfalls were published on Page 114 of the the ORR Determination of Network Rail's outputs and funding for 2009-14' published in... October 2008!

Still it provided a timely peg on which to hang another NR bonus story.

Hoon for Tory Transport Secretary

Oh dear.

It appears that the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Theresa Villiers, is also a hoon.

This from the Daily Telegraph...

Theresa Villiers claimed almost £16,000 in stamp duty and professional fees on expenses when she bought a London flat, even though she already had a house in the capital.

Who is left to trust?

Which is the very question asked in our latest, exciting, Eye survey...

Gordon's Chinese take-away?

So Gordon Brown is meeting the Chinese Vice Premier today.

Is this a sign of movement on the 200 new DMU vehicles?

Probably not.

In the current climate it's more likely he's seeking political asylum...

Whitsun engineering works

This from the Northants Evening Telegraph....

The route proposed by East Midlands Trains ticket website:

Set off from Kettering Rail Station at 1.35pm on Saturday

Arrive at Derby Station at 2.50pm and leave at 3.42pm

Arrive at Blythe Bridge at 4.21pm and leave at 4.26pm on a bus

Arrive at Crewe at 5.51pm and leave at 6.02pm on a bus

Arrive at Stafford at 7.26pm and leave at 7.37pm on a bus

Arrive at Rugby at 10.03pm and leave at 10.10pm on a bus

Arrive at Milton Keynes at 11.20pm and leave at 4.53am on Sunday

Arrive at London Euston station at 7.41am

Take the tube from Euston station to St Pancras and arrive at 8.01am.

That's an 18 hour journey to cover approximately 70 miles. Good effort.

Tautology

Pictured at Crewe yesterday...


The bucket is a nice touch!

Please can somone buy Railnews a combi?

What has happened to the industry's in-house magazine Railnews?

Standards are slipping!

This image from an article on WSMR on the Railnews website:

Mind you, if they can't tell the difference between a 57 and a 67 then a seat in The Commons surely awaits.

UPDATE: A pedant writes...

57/67 confusion aside, the Railnews piece uses the wrong conjugation of the verb "go" in its intro:

"WREXHAM and Shropshire has said it fears for its survival if Arriva Trains Wales proposals for a direct Aberystwyth to London service goes ahead."

Proposals... goes: what kind of English do these people speak?

Huskisson - a politician for our times

More from 'Eleven Minutes Late', Matthew Engel's new book on the history of the railways.

With a bowler tip to Roger Cox in The Scotsman:

Huskisson's fate, argues Engel, is symptomatic of the disastrous relationship that has always existed in this country between railways and politicians.

"Confronted by the need to take a decision involving transport," writes Engel, "Huskisson suffered precisely the same mental block that was to afflict just about every British politician from that day to this. He dithered, he panicked, he got it spectacularly wrong."

Aye, that about sums it up - amateurs the lot of 'em.

And it might be almost forgivable if they weren't so damned fond of troughing at our expense.

Virgin - good effort!

With a bowler tip to Mark Frary over at The Times...



And this with a bowler tip to Westmount and, of course, Saatchi and Saatchi...



Just in case anyone is in doubt about what BR could achieve.

Selection of new NR Public Members begins

This should be a laugh.

Lets see how long it takes NR to weed out applications from the awkward squad this time.

Heaven forefend that anyone should be appointed as a public member with a scintilla of knowledge about the railways.

Or indeed with the ability to pose awkward questions of NRs well remunerated board.

UPDATE: This just in from our man at 222 Marylebone Road...

Is there any truth in the rumour that Captain Deltic is to stand down in favour of Joanna Lumley?


Having seen how Purdey dealt with Phil Woolas she'd sort out Coucher in no time.

UPDATE: This just in from Network Rail...

We are looking for "people with a strong belief in accountability and a thorough understanding of, and commitment to, good corporate governance".

So if you think you meet those criteria do get in touch.

The Fact Compiler says:

Prove it and select some Public Members who are sufficiently knowledgeable AND independent enough to really hold you to account.

Go on. I dare you!
(The Fact Compiler will not be applying)

UPDATE: This just in from our man at 222 Marylebone Road...

Clearly experience of the industry is of less importance than being an expert at corporate 'buzz word bingo'.

So that's the Captain AND Purdey ruled out !


The Fact Compiler can stomach Gordon paying his brother to do "cleaning services".

Just.

But rule out Purdey and it gets personal!

NR hoisted by own petard

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
According to today's Daily Mail even fares are now Coucher's fault.

And serves him jolly well right after his comments in the FT.

UPDATE: Drat - NR managed to get the story corrected an hour after publication.

And they even managed to get the URL changed!

However, Coucher's comments in the FT remain!

Velopodist comes out in favour of barriers!

Telegrammed by the Velopodist
Matthew Engel's assertion that other countries have avoided the ticket barrier is typical of the rosy-eyed view so many of the British middle classes have of other countries' railways.

And I suppose, given the slow or non-existent passenger growth on these railways and their extravagant spending on high-prestige, low-use high-speed trains, they are at least less crowded and busy than those on our own sceptred isles' fast-growing system.

But one does wonder whether Mr Engel has ever been to Paris?
The ticket barriers on the Paris metro are some of the most hostile to be found anywhere.

And, if one insists that the examples have to be from the mainline railways, the dreadful, dangerous, full-body height barriers on Paris's RER seem far, far more dangerous than the relatively timid, health-and-safety-compliant ones we have in this country.

I find it hard to think of any metro not equipped with some equivalent of the British ticket barriers, most of them far more dicey than ours.

Admittedly, most continental European countries do without barriers at their mainline termini - why bother when the taxpayer is paying most of the cost of the journey, after all?

But would the barrier-haters really prefer the ticket-cancelling system so prevalent in continental Europe? Once one's bought one's ticket, one normally has to find an obscure, hidden machine either on the platform or train to cancel it. Fail to locate such a box in time and one will be accosted by an angry, moustachioed man in a peaked cap demanding in no uncertain terms that one pay a fine five or six times the cost of the ticket one's already bought.

Of course, if the cancelling system were the normal British one and other countries preferred simple, automatic ticket barriers, a certain kind of person would simply change positions.

The cancelling system would be held up as an example of the officious, money-grubbing privatised British railway. The ticket barriers, meanwhile, would be seen as a paragon of continental efficiency that we should immediately import to our own, benighted country.

Given the way Lord Adonis has recently droned on about the wonders of the low-growth railways in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, perhaps we should name the affliction 'Adonitis'.

Screw airline passengers

This just in from 'Bacon Butty'...

When is a Gatwick Express not a Gatwick Express?

When it's the 18:22 London Bridge to Eastbourne (not calling at Gatwick Airport).

Who gives a stuff about route branding anyway!

Engel gets full marks

Bowler tip to Michael Kerr's blog over at the Telegraph for this...

In his wonderful new book about the relationship between the British and their railways - which he sums up as "a kind of exquisite torment" - Matthew Engel has a swipe at automatic ticket barriers, "an innovation neighbouring countries have managed to avoid, and one which slows up further the process of getting on a train".

Is no one brave enough to stand up for these awful machines?

Tom Harris on NXEC

This from nebusiness.co.uk

Former Rail Minister Tom Harris said: “It is entirely plausible they could hand it back, but I don’t think they should be subsidised by the public purse.”

He added: “If they are going to want to be a private company, they have got to accept that if they make the wrong judgment they have got to pay the price of that.”

No sympathy there then.

EMT employs people power

EMT has managed to upset the good burghers of Sheffield.

This from the BBC...

Council leaders in Sheffield have hit out at a train company for causing chaos at the city's railway station by introducing "human ticket barriers".

Now there's an idea - use real live people to check tickets.

Nah, it'll never catch on.

Virgin poked

More from Beardie Rail's ad agency.

Shagborough Tunnel at 00:41 is a highlight of this one.

Presumably after the shag, the TOC is no longer Virgin?

One way to breach franchise conditions and avoid premia payments.

UPDATE: This from Westmount...

It must be a dream?

Pendolino from Glasgow to Manchester via Stoke?

Has anyone told TPE?

Water into Wine ...AND served in Standard !!!

First time in 2009 years. I know RB has a beard but the similarity ends there.

No sorry - it must be a diversion whilst NR get the wires up from Preston to Manchester.

Dream on... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

RMT calls for renationalisation of East-Coast Line

Bears crap in woods.

Pope Catholic

No shit Sherlock

UPDATE 08/05/09: A slow news day at the FT. They actually ran with this tosh.

Safety question as barrier bites bike.

More horror stories are emerging as the Battle of the Barriers rumbles on...

This from a gentleman in Norwich who regularly passes through the barriers there, and at Liverpool Street stations:

I can confirm the statement about the gates being powerful - my bike has twice been 'clamped' and it took a great deal of manual force by the staff to release it.

They were unable it do it electronically with their pass.

Had this been a child, I hate to think what would have resulted.

So bike owners have now joined parents and dog owners in questioning whether these new gates are fit for purpose.

Presumably the TOCs installing them have done a proper risk assessment?

Bowker - strange but true

Telegrammed by The Velopodist
Top of the bill at today's Railway Forum National Conference was beleaguered National Express Chief Executive Richard Bowker.

There was slack-jawed astonishment around the hall as Bowker not only proceeded to ignore his company's dire financial plight completely but then droned on for ages and ages about improving National Express's green credentials.

As watchers mouthed from the back of the room, "Your company's going bust, Richard", he explained the very pertinent news that National Express was the first large bus operator to switch all its depots to green tariff energy and explained how he'd always been a huge enthusiast for high-speed rail, back to his SRA days (when most people thought he kicked the Atkins report on high-speed rail into the long grass).

It was all really rather strange.

UPDATE: This just in from The Master...

Stock Market rules dear boy, Stock Market rules.

Let the bells ring out in Whitehall

Welcome back Edward Funnell.

DafT needs you!

UPDATE: This subliminal message is surprisingly contained within Virgin's latest TV ad.


How did Beardie Rail know?