Timetable Error

Robbie was late home last night because he'd had a very busy day, but he was looking forward to indulging his passion for trains with an 'out and about' day today. Not surprisingly trains seemed to be his main topic of conversation - nothing new there! He even showed me a detailed timetable that he had written for his train journeys today, now that really is sad! He was so proud of his timetable that he insisted that I should take a closer look at it, it was three pages long but it may as well have been in Greek as far as I was concerned. This morning he realised that he had made one basic error which made the timetable pointless - he'd left it at home! I recieved a series of frantic phone calls from Robbie insisting that I dictate the information to him over the phone. It wasn't as straightforward as it sounds, but he seems happy enough now, so hopefully he will leave me in peace to get on with my work!

It's Official - Network Rail Made a Mistake! 21.12.07

I think they are trying to take over my life, it seems that I can't get away from conversations about Network Rail. I was happily driving along at 7.15am listening to Today on Radio 4 when they turned to the subject of rail disruption over the Christmas and New Year period. A chap called Kevin Groves from Network Rail was dragged out of bed to defend the indefensible. All the women in the country will know that he was talking out of the wrong end because he did that tell tale man thing of stuttering and his voice steadily becoming higher. Robbie does it when I ask him to justify why he needed to buy yet another tie and my brother does it all the time when he is losing an argument. Anyway this chap had to justify the very late decision of Network Rail to extend an engineering possession on the West Coast Mainline beyond the period specified originally, thus causing chaos to passengers and severe headaches for Virgin. I must give him credit for stating the blindingly obvious 'we have made a mistake' that may be the first time that Network Rail have ever made such an admission so there is novelty value in the words used, but there is depressing familiarity in the situation they were trying to excuse!

I think Kevin Groves needs a bit of media training, or perhaps he just needs to think twice about agreeing to such an early interview, because I suspect he may have made a few enemies at Virgin when he suggested that their customers should use rival train operating companies whose routes were unaffected. He failed to mention anything about replacement bus services and he completely overlooked the predicament of the poor old season ticket holders on a normal working day. Perhaps he also needs to think a little more about the way that he words things, his constant reference to doing 'big jobs' at Rugby will have conjured up unpleasant images in the minds of the young (and not so young) listeners! Couldn't they just have a week when they do everything right!!

This article contains a nice quote from Chris Gibb http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3075738.ece