Pointless signs - King's Cross

The Age of Austerity beckons

This from the BBC's Nick Robinson...

The American economist David Hale says that the governor of the Bank of England has told him that the next British government will need to launch an austerity drive so tough that it will threaten its political survival, potentially leaving that party out of power for a generation.

Farewell electrification, Crossrail, a new Thameslink fleet, add your own pet project here, etc...

Railway Garden Competition - Stratford

Good to see that the new Stratford International station is preparing to enter Railway Eye's famed Garden Competition.


Or is the shed perhaps Eurostar's new first class lounge?

When choice and competition doesn't matter

Telegrammed by Bulldog Drummond...
Nick Hassell in his Times Tempus column today does quite a good job analysing Stagecoach's recent (fairly creditable) performance.

But he ends up talking, as most analysts do, of upcoming sector consolidation.

Have any of these deep thinking hacks paused for a moment to think what the Competition Commission response will be?

The Government contracted passenger transport industry is already reduced to a handful of serious players.

Any fewer and CoCo will, rightly, see huge conflicts of interest.

What buses and railways want are more varied and interesting players rather than the present narrow field dominated by European nationalised railways and Scottish bus bandits.

As the lights dim put the Kettle on

This from Richard Trevithick...

With the ubiquitous 'Tornado' strangely missing from Captain Deltic's collection of IEP alternative "Top Trumps", the owning Trust is now looking to join the horsepower race by building a second replica.

This time a Gresley P2 - allegedly the most powerful kettle to run on British metals.

How soon before they set up a production line?

If Government doesn't get its finger out on a nuclear power programme the Carnot Cycle locomotive could be the saviour of the railways.

GBRf bidders - A view from a parallel universe

So who is really interested in buying First freight subsidiary GBRf?

Apparently at least one domestic freight operator is.

Sources suggest Freightliner; as the avaricious DB is now too busy consuming Sunderland based bus and rail combo Arriva.

Meanwhile, Eye understands that a number of overseas money houses are sniffing round.

Interesting.

Who might have form for buying freight operations with a "nationwide network"?

Particulalry with rising oil costs making "rail freight more profitable against the rival truck-based freight"?

Eye likes the sound of WBRf!

Arriva XC - Stable, horse, bolted

This from @SWLines, via Twitter...

XC have definitely reduced the NQY - KYL fare and everything derived from it.

It's now £921.

Too late - the £1,000 fare has already entered folklore. (with a bowler tip to @PlanetAl)

UPDATE: From Steve Strong...

Now that Lord Adonis has sorted out Cross Country fares can he please hold them to their franchise commitments.

Still no WiFi aboard Arriva XC despite a franchise promise to deliver it by 11th November 2009!

UPDATE: This from @SWLines...

@TheFactCompiler got another missing franchise commitment.

XC don't do at seat catering north of EDB/west of PLY.

In fact, they withdrew it!

UPDATE: This from Billy Connections:

Here's a whole list of things XC promised to do...

Introduction of five High Speed Train (HST) sets each with eight state-of-the-art refurbished coaches (total of 550 seats per set), providing longer trains with more seats and luggage space on the major North East-South West route...

Errr... all HSTs reduced by one vehicle and only 2 in daily service - plus two hired to East Coast at the moment...

High quality service on board:

• introduction of at-seat catering, reflecting customer preferences
• Wi-Fi access for all seats on all HSTs and Voyagers, and improved mobilephone reception on Voyagers
• hot plated food available to First Class passengers
• three members of staff providing on board service on long distance trains

Errr... Catering? Plated food?? Three members of staff???

More like microwaved food on cardboard or plastic containers, not a plate in site, and never seen more than one member of staff in First Class.

And Wi-Fi is not just invisible on the Voyagers but nowhere to be seen on the HSTs either!

So much for The Thin Controller's promise to be tough on ANY franchise which doesn't meet its commitments.

Come on Adonis - with just 8 days to go there may be votes in a breach notice!

First for losing another one

Hot on the heals of losing Michael Caine it now appears First has lost another one.

Tom Joyner, Ops Director of FuCC, has also been misplaced.

Happily all is not completely lost.

Eye understands that Jackie Townsend returns to the industry in his stead.

UPDATE: This from the Shunter...

It's a bad day.

Sadiq says...

This from Sadiq Khan, via Twitter...

I uploaded a YouTube video -- £8 million for Earlsfield Station refurbishment



Eye is happy to say, judging by the video's quality, that this was obviously not filmed by DfT press officers.

A shame the original DfT training video has been removed from YouTube - Sadiq's team might have found it useful.

UPDATE: This from @SadiqKhan, via Twitter...

@TheFactCompiler thank you!

Has the Fact Compiler been had?

State challenges Open Access on TV - Shocker

According to the latest issue of Modern Railways the Department for Transport has it in for Open Access Operators.

Lets hope the Mandarins weren't watching the Weakest Link tonight then.

In the final minutes there was a head to head between Dan, who books training courses for NHS employees, and Anne, who works for "a railway company in York".

Eye understands that Anne is being far too modest - she is in fact the Finance Manager for Grand Central.

So what was the result of this latest, televised, battle between the public and private sectors?


Anne - you are the strongest link!

First for blowing the bloody doors off

Eye hears that First Group has misplaced no less a person than Michael Caine!

Caine, nee Micklethwaite, was apparently FGW's commercial director.

Not a lot of people know that.

Electionballs - Osama Saeed, Glasgow Central

Exciting news from Osama Saeed the SNP candidate for Glasgow Central.

Keen to better understand the views of his potential constituents Osama has sent out the following survey.

All very laudable and good to see that the people are finally being listened to.

But what's this?

Not content with destroying The Union do the Scottish Nationalists also plan to repeal Einstein's General Theory of Relativity?

Mind you if they can cut the distance to London the business case for High Speed 2 gets even better!

UPDATE: This from a Mr West...

Actually, the SNP seem to be a very solid grasp of Einstein's relativity.

As any fule kno, a rail passenger travelling at (high) speed will observe a smaller distance from Glasgow to London than a stationary observer due to compression of the space-time continuum.

It's basic rocket science, really.

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

Indeed, as the famous limerick explains

There was a young fellow called Bright
Who thought Einstein's theory was right.
He departed one day
In a relative way,
And came back the previous night.

Cut the cr@p - tell us about the cuts.

According to @PoliticsHomeUK the Labour Party is calling on broadcasters to focus on policy.

Labour is trying to get the LibDems and Tories to sign up to a draft letter saying:

We are writing to broadcasting organisations with a public service remit to ask you all to ensure that during the last ten days of the campaign your programmes analyse our policy proposals to the same level of detail as at previous election campaigns.

What a splendid initiative.

Despite the parlous state of the economy not a word from any of the major parties on where post election transport cuts will be made.

We all know they are coming so surely its time to end the equivocation and spin.

Brown, Cameron and Clegg don't take us for fools - it's time to tell us where the cuts will fall.

Pointless signs - Capt Deltic's name card

With a Bowler tip to @Captain_Deltic...


For the non grease monkeys amongst you the large metal thing on the table is a Deltic piston.

Eye's new election correspondent

Mr Khan reports on Nick Clegg...



Genius!

Arriva internal briefing on DB offer

Thursday 22 April 2010

Dear Colleague

Today it has been announced that Deutsche Bahn, the largest German public transport operator, has made an offer to buy Arriva at 775p per share. Over a period of weeks we have negotiated hard with Deutsche Bahn, and the Board is unanimous in recommending the offer to shareholders. The full announcement can be read at www.arriva.co.uk.

In the mid 1990s Arriva took the decision to develop a pan-European business which would position the company well to benefit from the liberalisation of passenger transport markets. We are now in 12 countries and one of the leading private operators in most of those territories, helping passengers to make over 2.5 million journeys a day. Even though we are one of the leading private operators we still only have a tiny proportion of the market and therefore the potential for growth is significant.

The chief executive of Deutsche Bahn, Dr Ruediger Grube, also sees this opportunity, and the potential to build a strong international business. He and I both recognise the value of Arriva's senior management team and employees.

The plan is for Deutsche Bahn to build on Arriva's international platform and for Arriva's current management team to lead the enlarged group's regional and urban transportation business outside Germany.

Deutsche Bahn intends to ensure Arriva's continuity of top management, and high employee motivation. Its plans include maintaining our head office in Sunderland, under the existing management team, and keeping the Arriva brand.

For our shareholders who have invested in us and supported us over the years, this is an opportunity to receive a cash offer which fully recognises the current and future benefits of our strategy, and of the business we have built up.

For Arriva this is a great opportunity for our employees and management team to work with Deutsche Bahn and accelerate expansion in Europe, building on our leading position.

For our customers and passengers, it is business as usual and we look forward to continuing to serve them.

There are several stages to go through and conditions to be met before the offer can be implemented and the process is expected to take a period of some months. Our management team across all our divisions will be briefed over the next few days and will be in position to hold further briefings and start answering questions shortly. We will do our best to answer questions as they come up, though it may not be possible to provide an immediate and definitive answer for every question.

If you are asked questions by the media or other external stakeholders, please continue to refer them to Corporate Communications where they will be channelled to the most appropriate point.

David Martin, Chief Executive

NR's Great Western is no Great Western!

This just in from D1048...

Into the inbox thunders a missive from Network Rail, with the announcement of a thorough refurbishment for Isambard Kingdom Brunel's iconic Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash.

Welcome news.

But what's this comment from Route Director Chris Rayner?

“It will be the most complex refurbishment work since the bridge was built”.

Hrmmph!

Given that NR is expecting to spend around £10m to 'strengthen, restore and repaint' the bridge over the next three years, it may certainly be the most expensive refurbishment in the bridge's 150-year history, but the most complex?

Just for the record, the Great Western Railway undertook a major refurbishment of the Royal Albert Bridge back in 1928, when the main girders supporting the 15 approach spans on both banks were completely replaced.

In an eerie foretaste of NR's proposed high-output 'factory train' model, the innovative GWR developed a special wagon to undertake the renewal work. This carried the new girders to site, supported the deck whilst swinging the old girders out and lifting new ones into place, before retreating again with the old girders for removal. A very good explanation of how it was done - with pictures - can be found here.

And what is more the whole process could be carried out - with manual labour - in just 3 1/2 hours, allowing an entire span to be replaced in a 5-hour Sunday morning possession. Certainly not three years!

Is this another case of today's railway having no corporate memory before 1993?

UPDATE: This from Ithuriel...

Or 2002 in the case of Network Rail.

Readers letters - First for Football

Dear Fact Compiler

I may be the youngest reader of Railway Eye!

This is Harry Cartwright (aged 13) of Wolverhampton and I have started a Facebook campaign to get the next member of the "Football Class" of First GBRf Class 66s named "Wolverhampton Wanderers".

I would be very grateful if you would encourage all readers of Railway Eye who have a Facebook account to join my group and encourage footy fan Director John Smith of First GBRf to name his next "Football Class" loco "Wolverhampton Wanderers".

I would like to get 100 members of my group by the final whistle after the Blackburn game tomorrow (Sat 24-Apr-10 16:50).

Thanks for your help.

Cheers Harry

Go on then - link here.

Pointless signs - Barking

This from @AMonkster, Via Twitter...


They'll be waiting a long time to get to Liverpool Street!

UPDATE: This from Lazarus...

Actually they'll be waiting at most 16 hours (weekdays).

First train of the day at 05:06 goes to Liverpool Street, as do the 20:51, 21:11 & 23:57.

UPDATE: This from a Mr Boughen...

The only way to get from Barking P5 to Liverpool Street is either a reverse close to Upney or at Gasworks Junction & Stratford.

Services to Liverpool Street depart from P8 (or P7) due to the fact that they connect to the GOBLIN & Forest Green Jct.

UPDATE: This from Tony Miles...

Mornington Crescent! Do I win?

DfT preparing to cut services?

This from a Mr Taylor...

Is DfT trying to sneak in plans to cut service levels during the life of franchises?

And hand back money as a reward to the lucky TOC at the same time?!

This from p28 of DfT's Future of Franchising document:

5.14 It will be important, especially in the case of longer franchises, to ensure that the Department’s original specification can be amended during the franchise term. We therefore want to ensure that operators have an incentive to propose changes to service levels to reflect levels of use. The Department is therefore considering amending the current franchise agreement so that’ where operators propose sensible measures to reduce costs during their franchise term’ they will be rewarded by receiving a proportion of these savings.

5.15 Under the current process there is no incentive for operators to make sensible changes to services that are no longer justified, since any savings are returned entirely to Government. This in turn drives sub-optimal decision making. It will be important that any such changes proposed by the operator are justified, and the Department will always consider such changes.

Tut tut tut.

Still, it might mean there is hope for London Midland and CrossCountry after all.

UPDATE: This from @SWLines, via Twitter...

I am reminded of "DfT do not renegotiate franchises"...do they mean except when it is convenient for them, then? :)