Eye understands that Mortons Media Group may be adding Railway Magazine to its growing portfolio of titles.
Regular Eye readers will recall that the Lincolnshire based specialist magazine publisher also snapped up Rail Express earlier this year.
The 2009 ABC audited figures showed Railway Magazine with a healthy circulation of 34,715 copies.
Hot on the heels of the Coucher Memorial Fencing which has been sprouting up around the network comes the latest in safety gold plating.
Welcome to the world of Stanchion Spikes!
Eyes correspondent Captain Biggles writes...
Has there been a sudden spate of stanchion climbers?
After all, the ac electrification seems to have managed without this 'protective' nonsense for 50 years.
Note that the stanchion in the background has not been treated...
Anyone any idea how much these new Elf'n'Safety features cost?
Is ATOC secretly planning to open a new station?
Or does this page reflect its view of passengers?
Eye thinks we should be told?
UPDATE: This from Our Man in the Dark...
Since it's a Z code station it must be one of ours.
Are ATOC planning some kind of Underground takeover?
We should be told!
This from D0260...
Notice that this particular Railway Garden is safely under the watching eye of a CCTV camera.
Time for an exciting new feature focusing on the travels of platform trolleys!
This from Alex (13 years)...
Presumably this Yorkist trolley had hitched a lift on a passing Arriva Voyager (if it could have found any space!).
Anyhow, it looks happy enough with Wakefield Prison in the background.
Telegrammed by Wired William
Exciting news for Arriva CrossCountry passengers!
Regular readers will recollect that Arriva singularly failed to deliver on its CrossCountry franchise commitment to fit WiFi to their HST and Voyager fleets by the 11th November 2009.
So what has the supine DfT been doing to hold Arriva to account for breaching its franchise agreement?
A Freedom of Information request reveals errr.. not very much.
The released data contains myriad electronic and hard copy communications between DfT's Franchise Manager and Andy 'Duff' Cooper, the MD of CrossCountry.
Duff initially offered a range of excuses as to why Arriva should be able to shirk its franchise obligations, including offering up 3G as a jam tomorrow solution and then cheekily suggesting that the prevalence of dongles obviates any need for on-train WiFi.
A clearly exasperated DfT wrote to Arrive CrossCountry on the 2nd December 2009 instructing the franchise to implement WiFi by 31st January 2010.
Amusingly CrossCountry's Franchise and Internal Compliance Manager (sic) then penned the following to DfT:
"As it is not possible to install Wi-Fi in less than 2 months, we have been unable to meet that deadline."
This letter was dated the 26th February - almost a full month after the compliance date. Evidently Arriva holds the Department in high regard.
Finally DfT's Cross Country Franchise Manager wrote to Duff on the 7th May this year saying:
Franchise Agreement: Appendix 11 Part 1 paragraph 2.1 (b) (iii)
I refer to the above clause contained in the Franchise Agreement requiring CrossCountry to provide operational WiFI at all seats on its HST fleet by the revised delivery date of 31st January.
CrossCountry has failed to fulfil this Committed Obligation, and is in contravention of the Franchise Agreement. The DfT expects CrossCountry to meet all of its obligations to provide operational WiFi at all seats on both its HST and Voyager fleets.
Proposal
To enable realistic delivery of the HST and Voyager obligation and to include the obligations to offer complimentary WiFi to 1st class customers, the Department is prepared to agree to a revised delivery date of the 30th September 2010.
If CrossCountry would like to progress this proposal please advise me in writing so we can prepare the necessary documents.
Enforcement
The Department will take prompt enforcement action in respect of any future conravention. If Cross Country enters into this Contract Change and it appears likely at any time that you will not have complied with the relevant obligations by the new due date, the Department is currently minded to impose and enforcement order under section 55 of the Railways Act 1993, which may include a fine...
Fine words indeed!
But what's this?
As at the 6th August (the date of the last document released) the new date for WiFi fitment had still to be agreed by Arriva.
An email from Duff to DfT on that date contains yet more excuses as to why a date cannot be agreed, including:
This from the Daily Mail...
Tourists on a sleeper train from Spain to Italy woke up nearly 200 miles off course - after French railway signallers gaffed and sent them to Switzerland.
Technicians split the train as scheduled in the city of Lyon after it arrived from Barcelona in the early hours of Monday.
But they mixed up the carriages bound for Milan in northern Italy with those supposed to go to the Swiss city of Zurich 175 miles away.
Of course a complete surprise that the Frenchies managed to bugger up the services of another country's operator.
UPDATE: This from King Henry...
My correspondent in Crewe has telegraphed this to me:
A nice story from Switzerland, lifted from the Swiss Rail chat group...
"According to an item on the local radio something went wrong when the "Trenhotel" from Barcelona was separated in to its two sections in Lyon last night. The section for Milano was dispatched to Zürich and the Zürich section to Milan!
"When the train arrived in Zurich, it was full of bewildered passengers. The section for Zürich was stopped on its way to Milano on the French - Italian border and diverted back on to the right route, arriving in Zürich three hours late.
"Those travellers that arrived in Zürich by accident were transported to Milano by the SBB."
Embarrassing, but not quite as embarrassing as the night one of my namesakes on a Birmingham express took the wrong turn at Ashendon Junction and headed for the Great Central.
July's retail price index (RPI) inflation figure is 4.8%.
Train companies are allowed to increase regulated fares, including season tickets, by 1% above the July RPI.
So in January most regulated fares should increase by 5.8%.
Sadly South Eastern passengers suffer an RPI +3% increase to pay for the Javelin High Speed domestic services that errr... no one is using.
Meanwhile Petrol-head has indicated that locking regulated fares increases to RPI +1% cannot be guaranteed.
Which means that in January regulated fares could actually increase by more than 5.8%.
Happily in their pre-election manifesto the LibDems committed to reducing the cost of rail travel by changing the January fares formula to RPI -1%.
Now. Transport is supposed to be one of the red line areas for the Muesli Munchers in coalition.
So who will blink first - the Jag driving Petrol-head or power before principle Cleggy?
UPDATE: This from 37052...
What Petrol-head has overlooked is that the RPI/ fares increase is contractualised, so to raise fares by more he will need to negotiate a contract change with the TOCs.
Or I suspect DaFT will have to do it for him as he’s got a motor show to open, but the point is he’ll want to reduce the subsidy profiles accordingly.
Methinks the canny TOCs will drive a hard bargain and he won’t see as much moolah as he’s thinking he will!
This from York Control...
ECML late running after 1D73 struck photographers step ladder
Delays on Down ECML after 1D73 reported striking something at Westborough UWC.
Driver opines a person, probably waiting to photograph Tornado, has strayed onto the line.
Drivers’ examination has revealed some superficial damage to his unit believed caused by a step ladder.
Sadly The Fact Compiler feels compelled to join those in the industry who question whether kettles on the mainline are now more trouble than they are worth.
Perhaps Eye's friends in the Railway Press could point out to the Puffer-nutters that they are drinking in the last chance saloon?
WTF?
Anyone know what box this extraordinary headgear is based on?
UPDATE: This from Our International Correspondent...
Eye readers wishing to join this new fashion trend can buy the model signalbox here.
Sadly the paint, glue and B List Irish chanteuse is not included.
Coming soon on Channel 4 - Gok Kwan's new series - "How to Look Good wearing little bits of railway infrastructure"
Telegrammed by our International Correspondent
LUL’s little difficulty with a runaway engineer’s train is now subject to a RAIB investigation.
Without wishing to prejudge this, or indeed add to the media frenzy, the Eye would like to make mention of various people to whom the Underground and Londoners owe a debt of thanks.
So firstly a deep doff of the bowler to the Northern line controllers and signallers who responded so well to an unprecedented situation, cleared the line and by so doing prevented an incident of far greater magnitude taking place.
Eye offers another doff of the bowler to the Northern line motormen and women (Train Operators) who, when faced with a whole set of new instructions over the radio, put their faith in what they were being told by Control and got on and did it.
The Northern line is led by General Manager Jeff Ellis.
Jeff is a heavyweight railway operator, who cut his teeth as railway incident officer for the Moorgate accident. Although one of a dying breed in an increasingly politicised TfL, Jeff will have inclulcated in his team a professional approach to railway operations.
These tried and tested skills served Londoners well on Friday.
Meanwhile, with the ever present threat of cuts hanging over public sector LU perhaps Jeff could help top up the Northern line's coffers.
Eye suggests he hires out his railway controllers to Eurotunnel - who proved not nearly so adept at handling the unexpected in real time last Christmas...
UPDATE: This from Lock and Load...
Just thought you might want to know that Jeff has been looking after projects at LUL for a couple of months now and that the Northern's GM is Pat Hansbury.
Regardless, what a fantastic demonstration of professional operating though.
This from Captain Deltic...
May I offer Eye followers the chance to re-live a fabled period in privatised railway history?
After Privatisation was announced there was a period of 1,064 days during which no new trains were ordered for Britain's railways.
This was not an hiatus, according to long suffering Transport Minister Roger Freeman, but a long pause.
This Sunday, the 15th August, it will be 500 days since the last rolling stock order was placed.
Can the 1,064 day record be beaten?
We'll be halfway there on 16 September.
This from the BBC...
A driverless train ran for almost four miles on the London Underground on Friday morning.
The engineering train, which does not carry passengers, became uncoupled as it was being towed on the Northern line between Archway and Warren Street stations...
Transport for London (TfL) said the train was slow moving and there was no safety risk.
Errr... so that's all right then!
This from a Mr Swift...
I am sure the residents of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes will be interested in the "Planned East Coast Route" detailed in the vestibule end knowledge Maps in all the current ECML "non-tilting" stock.
I wonder if the routes North of Edinburgh (excluding one a day to Glasgae) should also state "East Coast Routes to be un-planned?"
This rather exciting corporate video has made it's way onto YouTube, with a bowler tip to Driver Potter...
Nice to see NR showing off their staff and business to the interested public.
I see no mention made of accountants and bonuses, though...
This from the South West Trains website, with a bowler tip to a Mr Poobah...
And here in close up:
SWT treating customers as suckers etc... (make-up your own weak pun here) etc...
Posts
