This from Leo Rubine-Redd...
It looks as though time is already withering the legacy of Rail Barbie.
Apparently the famous Barbie Pink - more properly known as Rubine Red, has been dropped from the colour palette for the refurbished First Capital Connect Class 365 EMUs.
This from the Sunday Torygraph...
Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, said he was “looking into” the
mix of first class and standard class after the findings were presented to
him. He agreed that there might be ways of “delivering a better passenger
experience” by increasing the ratio of standard-class carriages.
So what exactly are supposedly private sector train operating companies responsible for?
And which bits of Maria Eagle's renationalisation plans does this government now reject?
Time to compare and contrast.
This from the Earl Attlee on the 25th April...
Earl Attlee (Whip, House of Lords; Conservative)
Rolling stock deployment is a matter for the train operators with the Government's role primarily focused on ensuring that this represents value for money when the taxpayer's interest is involved. It is therefore for franchise bidders to determine the rolling stock requirements for routes within the franchise area and to work with the rolling stock owning groups to make decisions on investment in both new and existing rolling stock.
The Department for Transport is currently investing in rolling stock for the Thameslink and Inter City Express programmes. These procurements will significantly increase the national fleet size, enabling the department's investment strategy requirements to be met.
Existing rolling stock procurement programmes (including Thameslink and InterCity Express), and potential cascades of trains to other lines will not be delayed by the franchise schedule announced in March 2013, including during periods of direct awards contracts. The department will be working with both the train operators and rolling stock owning companies to understand any further rolling stock needs identified by them during the direct award periods.
Quite so and quite right!
Let the market decide!
Alas, here is the Earl Attlee on the 26th June...
Earl Attlee (Whip, House of Lords; Conservative)
Bidders for the East Coast franchise will be required to enter into arrangements for the use of trains procured through the InterCity Express Programme for use on East Coast in any agreements finalised by Her Majesty's Government.
So My Lord, it is not really 'for franchise bidders to determine rolling stock requirements' at all then?
This from Henry Trumpet...
A big welcome to Whitehall's brand spanking new interwebby - just gone live today!
A single Whitehall website in which the DfT is the first enlightened member to join, along with Pickles' DCLG (only 22 more Departments to follow!).
Click on the link and then click to go to the new “gov/dft” site to find a beggar's muddle of DfT-DCLG info (Eye thought DafT was cosying up to BIS? Ed).
And what is the headline story on this exciting new window into the non micro-managing department?
Additional 'Santa Specials' from that nice man Stormin' Norman!
Make it up you could not.
Telegrammed by Newhaven Marine
BBC Radio 4 broadcast a programme today fisking DfT over Parly Trains.
If you missed 'The Ghost Trains of Old England' well worth listening again on iPlayer.
For the benefit of those in Marsham Street: Railways generally provide something called a passenger service.
Service as in something that can be used by passengers and which appears in a timetable to enable said.
Sadly once the Department for Transport starts specifying timetables the term 'passenger service' is transmogrified into a fig leaf to cover DafT incompetence, which explains ghost trains the don't appear in timetables and trains that become taxis or charabancs.
And all because DfT didn't understand the closure processes that their own officials wrote into legislation.
Eye wonders who is responsible for this expensive nonsense and when they will be fired?
Failing that an undertaking from Petrol-head that we will see an end to timetable micro-management would be much appreciated.
UPDATE: This from Jim 'Nick Nick' Davison...
The town of Polesworth on the Nuneaton to Stafford route used to have a poor service of four trains a day. It is a fair size place with the remains of Polesworth Abbey and a needs a boost as years ago was a mining area.
To facilitate the west Coast mainline modernisation the trains were replaced by a substitute bus (for about four years).
During that time the station footbridge was demolished leaving the Up platform stranded.
No worries though as Railtrack's Act of Parliament for the works allowed compulsory purchase along the alignment including line of deviation so a strip of field would give access parallel to the railway to the road bridge. This was not done.
When the train service was being set up to run trains, the local authorities were told that because of pathing, if a train running on the 'slows' (this is a four track section) stopped at Polesworth, it could not stop at the next station Atherstone and vice versa.
Accordingly now only one train a day calls at Polesworth.
Another fact about that area is that the two towns of Walsall and Wolverhampton were linked by a train service that was so often under threat and cancelled, that many thought it had gone.
When the consultation for the new West Midlands Franchise came up, Network Rail (according to the DfT website that annoyingly has it under responses to Cross Country franchise consultation) responded supporting withdrawal of the trains so that the unit could be used elsewhere (Why ? Is it their business to do so?)
It is now annoyingly awkward once again to make journeys such as Shrewsbury to Walsall.
Eye salutes Philip Hammond for wresting the chair of the Department for Transport Board from Permanent Secretary Robert Devreaux.
As any fule kno the DfT Board has the following remit:
The role of the Department’s Board is to:
In the most extraordinary come back since Mandy's return to Cabinet for the third time Tom Harris has leapt back into the ring!
Tom leads with the right:
"Harris KO'd!"? Oh, I hardly think so, old chap!
"Your argument/article of faith that DfT specifies rolling stock is based on those occasions where the department - rightly and unavoidably - takes into account the rolling stock commitments of the rest of the network.
"How disgraceful!
"How dare the DfT look at the country as a whole when issuing franchises!
"And how comforting to know that your own solution is to have a Railway board.
"Membership drawn from... the good and the great from the World of Railways - only the self-appointed need apply (sounds like NR's existing Public Members. Ed) which will take no notice at all of the rolling stock that is committed in all parts of the country before giving the go-ahead to any franchisee's rolling stock plan.
That's not a recipe for disaster at all, oh no...
So would that be a qualified admission that DafT does indeed specify rolling stock then Tom?
LAST WORD: Tom concludes...
"No, or at least, not in the terms that you and Roger Ford constantly claim.
"It's up to TOCs to decide what rolling stock they want, but ministers wouldn't be doing their job properly if they didn't intervene - occasionally and only where necessary - to protect the wider network.
"Now go and hassle Andrew Adonis and leave me alone..."
If only the new minister were as accessible...
The Fact Compiler rather generously give the last word to Tom Harris MP in the thread We are the masters now!
As a man of his word The Fact Compiler will not reopen that topic.
However, as Tom was kind enough to suggest the Eye's latest exciting poll here are some additional reader reflections:
This from The Major....
"Like Captain Deltic, most people become annoyed when someone says one thing and does another.
"DfT says it does not manage rolling stock.
"Train operators say it does.
"They can't both be right.
"Take a look at any franchise agreement and you'll find a table listing the precise number of coaches allocated to that franchise. This agreement will be signed by the operator and the DfT.
"To change this list requires DfT approval because it is a signatory to the agreement.
"Therefore, DfT does control the stock allocated to that franchise.
"In the good old days of the Strategic Rail Authority, ministers could tell parliament that the SRA controlled rolling stock.
"When the SRA was abolished by government, its functions were split. Network Rail for example took on route utilisation strategies while DfT took on the bulk of SRA's duties.
"I do not recall that allocation of rolling stock was a duty passed to train operators but that is what ministers now tell us.
"Look at it another way. Britain's railways are short of stock. They are running more trains and carrying more people. That's a good thing.
In such a situation, and with franchises set by government, then it must be government that controls allocation of rolling stock - unless ORR fancies a go.
"It would be more honest of ministers if they said: 'Yes, we do control stock allocation because it's scarce and we want to make sure we make best use of it.'
"We might not like their decisions (passengers writing to their MPs certainly don't) but the whole process would be far easier to understand."
In for a penny in for a pound. Anyone else care to comment?
UPDATE: Tom Harris MP writes...
"The Major says 'Take a look at any franchise agreement and you'll find a table listing the precise number of coaches allocated to that franchise. This agreement will be signed by the operator and the DfT'
"Correct - but take a look at any Invitation to Tender and you will see that the DfT does not specify rolling stock.
"Towards the end of that process, the DfT naturally and sensibly requires TOCs to say what rolling stock it will use.
"As you rightly say, stock is scarce, and who do you think would get the blame if a TOC won a bid with a commitment to rolling stock that wasn't available to it.
"That the franchise agreement contains details of rolling stock is obvious. That it is signed by both parties is, I would have thought, a legal requirement."
Any more for any more?
Word reaches The Fact Compiler that Geoff Hoon was nearly late for this morning's ceremonial send off from Nottingham of the new Leeds service.
As DafT demanded the new services introduction presumably it could also have demanded its delay?
Good news from Northampton.
As is well known DafT does not micromanage franchises.
But in a major scoop the Northampton Chronicle has uncovered the following shocking admission concealed very near the top of a DafT press release:
Lord Adonis said "This new timetable will see many more trains running every day, many of them originally specified by the Government and now being introduced by franchised train operators."
Remember, you read it there first.
Parliamentary Written Answer given on 10th July
"Tom Harris (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Glasgow South, Labour) | Hansard source
Officials in the Department for Transport meet Network Rail every four weeks to discuss rail performance and this meeting is normally chaired at ministerial level. As a key intercity route, all aspects of performance on the route are discussed."
So no Micro-management there then.
Posts
