Oil's well that ends well

According to the Daily Telegraph airlines are facing a £3bn loss unless oil prices turn. It can't be long before the first TOC squeals to the same tune.

As far as The Fact Compiler is aware only Arriva Cross Country hedged it's diesel costs for the entire life of the franchise.

Others have shorter deals which, if they haven't already, must soon be coming to an end. And with no obvious end to rising oil prices new hedges are getting hard to find.

Meanwhile the sagely head of the OECD claimed today that high oil prices send a clear signal to consumers and firms to curb their use of fuel.

Good news for the Government.

No longer do they need to price down passenger demand - they can just let the market starve the railway of fuel.

And no, electrification is not on the agenda

Kelly rejects "Super-lorries"

***DfT announces that heavier goods vehicles won't be allowed on British roads on either a trial or permanent basis. Cites potential to abstract from railfreight.***

Take a seat - they're all free

When "back to basics" adulterer Major Balls-up decided to unleash the UK's most idiotic privatisation there were romantic hopes that the network would be awash with open access operators.

As Wolmar points out in his latest Rail article this has failed to happen and the three open access operators currently plying their trade are by and large an irrelevance to the big issues facing today's industry.

Indeed there are many who would like to see them disappear so the Fact Compiler is somewhat surprised that they have not sought unity in adversity - where for instance is the Association of Open Access Operators?

Perhaps the reason such an entity doesn't exist is that it would have more members than customers.

Spotted at Leamington Spa this morning were both the "Up" and "Down" early morning services of the splendidly named Wrexham, Shropshire & Marylebone Railway.

Passenger count: ten on the North and twenty on the South bound!

Thank goodness DB has deep pockets!

UXB at Bromley by Bow

***17:17 - An unexploded Second World War bomb has resulted in the suspension of London Underground services through Bromley by Bow. Disruption could last for up to 48 hours***

***17:50 - Services now restored after ministrations from the Bomb Disposal Squad***

***18:45 - DB lawyers allegedly flying in from Germany to contest potential abatement claim from TfL against Loo Roll concession***

***20:45 - Is 2000lbs quite big then?***

***23:52 - Sources close to DfT say Ruth Kelly now believes she has found a cheap way to do Crossrail groundworks at Stratford***

Kettle meet pot

It's not often that Network Rail gets to have a go at the failings of others, so when it does it really goes to town.

Kerpow! Hidden Dragon's team pushed out a release on Friday headed NR seeking "urgent answers from TfL following Liverpool Street Bridge fiasco".

Thwok! COO Robin Gisby railed: "Passengers rightly want an explanation, as do I. Passengers deserve an apology for the disruption they suffered last night and this morning and I want assurances that such an incident can't and won't happen again."

The Fact Compiler doesn't believe in being churlish so therefore won't point out NR's exemplary record in delivering gold plated engineering fiascoes (Portsmouth, Christmas, Easter, etc...).

Splatt! Or indeed the fiasco this very morning when the brand new Mitcham Eastfields station failed to open on time.

Sadly Robin's own people don't seem to be listening to him, as there was no sign in the BBC piece of either an apology from NR or an undertaking to the people of Mitcham that it won't happen again tomorrow.

Load, shoot, aim!

Peanuts and monkeys

News that will have TOC owner groups quaking in their boots.

DafT is advertising for a new Commercial Negotiator.

Alongside all the guff about managing a team of Franchise Managers, negotiating Variations and advising Ministers the ad glibly states that the Commercial Negotiator will "be responsible for authorisation of contractual payments of c.£400million each year".

And the salary?

A massive £86k (plus Civil Service benefits)!

So accountable for £400million a year and the salary is less than £90k?

The Fact Compiler thinks such an important role is probably worth a bit more than this. And he can almost guarantee that there won't be a queue of senior TOC or ROSCO people, experienced in such commercial negotiations, willing to apply for the job as "poacher turned gamekeeper".

Perhaps DafT hopes they'll do it for Love?

This is getting repatitive

Has the railway suddenly become CV fashionable?

On Friday it was announced that yet another Chief Operating Officer has left the system to rescue a struggling "Blue Chip" company.

First, Mark Cooper, COO of Metronet, was called-up to sort BAE's supply chain.

Then Mike Brown, Underground COO, was parachuted in to fix Heathrow.

Latest to go is Steve Peat, Tubelines COO, who has been tasked with safeguarding BAA's investment in six other UK airports.

The Fact Compiler wonders if this will be enough to convince the Government that they should be allowed to keep all seven?

Meanwhile there are nervous whispers of a railway brain-drain.

Mappa mondeo

The Independent on Sunday has a well deserved reputation for promoting sustainability and championing the environment.

Only today its front page promised that if we all did our bit, by harnessing the power of sun and wind, we could reduce the need for new nuclear power stations and "save vast amounts of carbon dioxide".

A shame, therefore, that such environmental zeal does not extend to the Sindie's Promotions department, which had ensured every edition included a beautiful free Map of the British Isles. Sadly this was overlaid with the choking road system without a railway line or station to be seen.

The Fact Compiler's copy will be recycled.

RMT gets it right

Carnage during Tube alcohol party:

Sunday Telegraph

Very sad!

Lettuce pray

His Holiness the Dalai Lama used East Midlands Trains to attend a rally of the faithful in Nottingham last week.

Pictured with His Holiness is Tim Shoveller, MD of EMT. Deal maker Shoveller denied that he was seeking enlightenment from His Holiness on how EMT might avoid the threatened recession.

The Fact Compiler understands that in an unrelated development EMT goes fully vegetarian from Monday.

Disruption at Liverpool Street

So who, or what, is to blame for the chaos at Liverpool Street?

Network Rail are quick off the mark and have already pointed the finger at a "bridge recently installed by TfL over the tracks for the East London Line extension".

Meanwhile The "soaraway" Sun makes a mixed fist of it with a piss-poor headline but some great photographs.

It's Grand up North!

***December '08 graph showing two Grand Union paths to Bradford***

Loo Roll unrolls

Whilst TfL busies itself absorbing Metronet, and BoJo worries how to get the Big Grin Engine to cough up for Crossrail, it now looks as if the wheels are coming off at London Rail.

It's not been a happy ship over at the joint MTR/Laing Rail venture in recent weeks with a host of operating professionals voting with their feet.

The Fact Compiler hears that they are soon to be one short of an Operations Director as well.

One wonders how the news will play in Berlin and Honkers - if Shooter tells them of course.

Popster defends NR overruns

Coucher-Tiger-Hidden-Dragon and other residents of the Black Tower will be heartened to see that they have a doughty defender in aged popster & kettle-crank Pete Waterman.

According to yesterday's Coventry Telegraph Pete believes that the recent £14m fine imposed on NR by the Office of Rail Regulation was unjust.

"It's outrageous that the company trying to make it work is fined. Off course work overruns. If you tried to carry out repairs at home like putting in a new toilet and you pulled out an old pipe work would overrun."

The analogy is apt - in both cases one ends up covered in shit - although perhaps best not to talk it Pete.

Ken's little eggs

Today is the day that BoJo took over Metronet and it's £1.4bn obligation to upgrade the BCV & SSR lines.

It is also the day when a number of the little eggs that Ken left behind are starting to hatch...

Egg 1: Ken did a deal with the RMT to avert a threatened Metronet strike last month.

An 18th April RMT press release quoted Crowbar Bob as saying:

"We now have in writing undertakings that when the Metronet contracts are taken back in-house by TfL there will be no outsourcing, and that all Metronet staff will be entitled to join the TfL pension fund and enjoy the same travel facilities as other TfL employees".

The Fact Compiler wonders if anyone in BoJo's office has priced up providing all that free travel?

And membership of the TfL pension fund won't exactly come cheap...

Of course many existing Metronet employees (inherited from LUL) are already members of the scheme.

Which means that under the law of unintended consequences the biggest beneficiaries of Ken's largesse will be those Directors and Senior Managers brought into Metronet by the former shareholder companies!

RMT - fighting for the rights of senior private sector employees!

Egg 2: On March 16th TfL announced a £98m deal to bring Croydon Tramlink back in house.

The Fact Compiler again wonders who will pay for this?

Perhaps BoJo could ask the then Transport Commissioner who agreed both deals, one Peter Hendy?

FGW can't let sleeping dogs lie

The decision by First Great Western to end joint occupancy in standard class sleeping car compartments has been greeted with mixed reviews.

A FGW spokesman justified the change on the grounds that "You wouldn't expect to share a hotel room with a stranger and nor should you expect to share a sleeper carriage with someone you don't know."

Ben Webster in The Times highlighted concerns that the new policy will result in a reduction in berths per coach from 24 to 12 and this at a time of rising demand.

Whilst on the Radio4 Today programme this morning William Shawcross, a regular sleeper user, expressed concern about whether this might be a ruse to stop the service altogether on cost and usage grounds.

The change will impact on both with the number of berths in a Standard Class coach, when compartment sharing is removed, being reduced from 24 to 12 .

To make up for this in revenue terms FGW will increase the sleeper berth occupancy rate to £40 from the current rate of £30 each if shared (or £60 per compartment).

Of course this doesn't take account of lost point-to-point ticket revenue. For instance the standard fare from London to Penzance is £74. The loss of 12 of these per coach is a lot of lost revenue!

Readers may remember that Worst Group and Daft received a good kicking from the great and the good of Kernow when last they tried to put the sleeper to bed. Let's hope this isn't an attempt to repeat the process, justified by hari-kiri economics.

Meanwhile chums in the South West fear that this is the real reason behind Worst Group's decision, not least because a large number of passengers will start to desert the service once they can no longer secure a berth on the service they want.

The Fact Compiler, minded of the preface to the Book of Common Prayer warning against too much stiffness in refusing and too much easiness in admitting any variation, suggests a better via media. Why not offer, on a first come first served basis, the option of a single occupancy at £50 versus a shared occupancy at £30. By so doing both revenue and loadings could be maximised.

Three in the frame for Freightliner

SNCF, Go-Ahead and Arcapita are rumoured to be interested in buying intermodal, coal and infrastructure train operator Freightliner, which has been put on the market by private equity owners Electra Partners and 3i.

The Sunday Telegraph's business section has Bahrain investment fund Arcapita leading the field.

Metronet transfer to TfL

***Metronet's transfer to TfL will complete on Tuesday 27th May.***

Scottish Charter Trains

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has had something of a Damascene conversion to the private sector in recent years - much to the disgust of party members.

In 2006 the SNP's Party Conference in Perth voted to re-regulate bus services, echoing a commitment previously included in the 2003 manifesto. With SNP membership clearly behind the policy it seemed a dead cert to be included in the 2007 election manifesto.

However, just weeks before publication date, Stagecoach boss Brian Souter bunged the SNP a £500k personal donation. Surprise, surprise, when the manifesto appeared the bus re-regulation commitment was missing!

The SNP's membership is also passionate about rail renationalisation. Once again the party fought the 2003 election on a platform of bringing ScotRail "back under public control". And yet again the undertaking was missing from the 2007 manifesto.

The ScotRail franchise is currently operated by First Group, who have the unenviable record as Britain's most hated franchise operator (Worst Great Western, FuCC, etc...).

Imagine, therefore, the shock amongst the party faithful when on the 3rd April this year Transport Scotland awarded Worst Group a four year extension to its franchise without any form of public consultation.

According to industry newspaper Railnews the decision was defended by Scotland's Finance Minister John Swinney on the grounds that public consultation might have caused damage to First Group's share price!

By now it will be apparent that with the SNP in power at Holyrood almost anything is possible.

With this in mind The Fact Compiler is inclined to give slightly more credence than usual to sources suggesting Stagecoach & Serco are going into partnership with the Scottish Exec' to run Charter Trains.

The Fact Compiler would love to hear more from his friends up North....

It's the Railway what won it!

Tory Toff Tinson's stunning victory at Thursday's Crewe and Nantwich by-election may reveal a bigger seismic shift in the electorates attitude to the Tories than even New Labour fears.

Ever since the days of Blessed Margaret Hilda the railway industry has distrusted the Tory party. That relationship reached it's nadir after the "back to basics" adulterer Major Balls-up unleashed the most idiotic privatisation that the UK has ever seen (until the Big Grin's PPP of course).

For railwaymen the Tories were seen as beyond the pale. It was after all a Tory Government, in the run up to Privatisation, that starved the industry of new train orders for over a 1,000 days - resulting in train manufacturing towns like Crewe shedding thousands of railway jobs.

For a railway town to elect a Tory MP would have been unthinkable just 12 months ago.

Does this mean the railway now trusts the Tories?