Saturday 20 June 2009

Hello. Hello. Hello.

This from the government's Digital Britain report published last Tuesday:

"mobile network operators... to provide and fund solutions to take the initiative to improve the broadband mobile access for mobile customers travelling by Tube."

Good news indeed for transport minister Sadiq Khan.

Who, the Telegraph reveals, has THREE mobile phones which we pay for.

Khan's conflict of interests?

Campaigning lawyer Louise Christian, of Christian Khan solicitors, is demanding a public enquiry into the Grayrigg accident.

Hopefully this will be dealt with in person by Secretary of State, Lord Andrew Adonis, and not left to the junior Transport Minister responsible for railways, Sadiq Khan.

That would be the same Sadiq Khan as in 'Christian Khan' - Louise's former business partner.

How ironic that the new transport minister built his previous business from suing the railways.

Parliamentary news

Good news from the mother of XXXXXXXXXXX

XXXX XXXXX has confirmed that he is to announce the XXXXXX XX XXX XX XXXX XXXXX on XXXXXX.

Prime Minister XXXXXX XXXXX said

XXXXXX XX XXXXXX XXXX X XXXXX XXXXX XXXX XX XXXXX XXXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXX X XXX, XXXX XXXXXX.

What a bunch of troughing XXXXX.

Virgin struggles

This from 'Dreadnought'...

I was interested to see your little extract from Virgin and their ambitions for the Glasgow market.

On Wednesday I travelled first class to Preston on the 0830 ex Euston and returned on the 1440 ex Glasgow.

No breakfast on the way up due to a faulty kitchen.

Four out of six toilets out of use on the way back.

It looks as if the strain of trying to run the VHF timetable with too few units is starting to take its toll.

A chap sitting opposite told me it was the second time in a week he had been deprived of his breakfast due to kitchen problems.

Not exactly good enough for the bargain price of £390 return!

Yes it's quick, it's frequent but the quality is falling noticeably.

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

If you are running the VHF short of a Pendolino due to Grayrigg (thanks Network Rail) and because of infrastructure failures (thanks Network Rail) you are regularly stepping up units, leading to the situation where Alstom Train Care don't know which depot a train with a problem is going to end up at. So the replacement griddle may be at Longsight whilst the Train with the dodgy griddle ends up at Wembley...

This is not to say that Virgin and Alsom are blameless, but merely to introduce some mitigating factors.

And from a chart on the wall of Wembley depot noted last Wednesday, about 80% of Pendolino 'toilets out of use' arriving on depot are blocked, so presumably something unsuitable was put down them.


Mind you, when I was the world's leading writer on train toilets (in a field of one, I might add) I went to see the Scandinavian pioneers of vacuum, toilets and they designed to avoid blockages due to coke cans. They use dog food for testing, by the way.

When silence really is golden

This piece of grandstanding tosh from the Tories:

Commenting on the news that the Government has ruled out an inquiry into the Potters Bar and Grayrigg rail crashes, Shadow Transport Secretary, Theresa Villiers, said:

This is a real blow for the families of those who died in these terrible crashes. It is unacceptable for the Government to have left those campaigning tirelessly for a Potters Bar inquiry hanging on for seven years. The delay has only served to increase the distress to those who were injured or lost loved ones as a result of the crash."

Hmmm.

One of the reasons that organisations like the RMT, and others, have called for a public inquiry rather than an inquest is to see what role privatisation played in these two major accidents.

That would of course be the same privatisation carried out by the "back to basics" adulterer John Major in the dying days of the last Tory govenment.

The same privatisation that destroyed an integrated railway on dogmatic grounds and added billions to its annual operating costs.


A privatisation that even Chris Grayling, the former Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, had to conceed was a 'mistake'.

Perhaps best to butt out of this one Theresa.