Why does he do that?

Those people who read the blog regularly will know by now that Robbie's thought processes are random to say the least, but he still manages to surprise me sometimes. His mind wanders at the most inappropriate times. I am sure he thinks that I have a pause button - like the television. At the weekend he interrupted an intimate moment to tell me about a bus tour next year, needless to say the moment was lost. I am sure his colleagues think it is funny to fill his head with this daft information, don't I have enough problems with him and rail tours without telling him about bus tours as well. So beware, I know who you are and I'm not amused!!

Mystery Men

Robbie was at work until late in the evening yesterday because he had to work from home in the morning while waiting for the Sky repair man to come and replace the sky box. We had no TV over Easter because the sky box turned up its toes, I didn't miss it that much but certain other people were having withdrawal symptoms. I am fairly happy as long as I have my radio, I can't survive without Radio 4. The Sky man turned up eventually and everything is back in working order, so when Robbie got home last night he parked himself in front of the TV and watched junk until 1.30am.

Talking of Radio 4 it was responsible for a serious rise in my blood pressure yesterday. The You and Yours program had a 'phone in' about rail travel, George Muir from ATOC, Nigel Harris from Rail magazine, Tom Windsor a previous rail regulator and the dreaded Iain Coucher from Network Rail were all there to answer questions. The first three sounded sensible and plausible, but yet again Iain Coucher sounded totally insincere and complacent. Someone who rang in had been prevented from getting to work that morning because of an engineering overrun at Shenfield. He did his usual splutter and stutter, then explained that the planned engineering work to work on signals had been completed on time but it just so happened that the very next signal to where they were working developed an unrelated fault and this caused the delay. Whatever! When Sam was younger he always blamed the squirrels for whatever he had done wrong, he was very convincing, but that didn't mean I believed him. The calls to the program were overwhelmingly critical, the only company to receive any praise was Virgin; whatever you think about their service you have to admire their PR!

I overheard Robbie making a series of work calls during the morning, he kept talking about Craig and Timmy and I began to wonder who they were, a gay couple perhaps? Did Robbie have a secret life? Eventually I asked about them as I hadn't heard him mention either of them before. It turned out that he was actually referring to a place, Craigentinny nr Edinburgh, apparently it is the place where the trains 'go to bed'.

East Anglian Daily Times

The Invisible Man Speaks 28.02.08

Well, I finally understand why Network Rail keep their chief executive hidden away from the public. Iain Coucher popped up on Radio 4 this morning to comment on the massive fine imposed on Network Rail by the Rail Regulator. The kindest thing I could say about Iain Coucher is that he lacks presence. There he was with that insipid little voice stuttering and clearing his throat, still trying to shift the blame and justify the unjustifiable. He showed no sign of caring about the disruption to passengers caused by the fiasco at Rugby at New Year, not to mention the additional disruption because they are falling behind with the work. He seemed equally careless about wasting taxpayers money. Perhaps someone should explain to him that in this day and age we are lied to by experts on a daily basis and his attempts at spin were at best feeble. Wouldn't it have been refreshing if he had said, we got it wrong, we let everyone down, we are sorry and we are doing x y and z to put it right, that really would have been worth the headlines.
Listening to the reporting about the £14 million fine imposed on Network Rail it seemed as if I was in a crazy Alice in Wonderland world. I guess the Rail Regulator has his hands tied by the government, but I have met earthworms with more backbone! I don't suppose Network Rail care a jot about the fine, either the government will give them more taxpayer's money so that they can spend what they originally planned or the travelling public will suffer because the Rail Regulator has £14 million of the money that Network Rail should have spent on maintenance and major projects. I think it is called smoke and mirrors!
Personally I would like to see Iain Coucher and his minions spend a day in the stocks outside Euston Station so that they would be forced to listen to the views of commuters, it wouldn't cost much and it would please a lot of people. Assuming that we have to work with modern day punishments I think the only way to get Network Rail to sit up and take notice is to hit senior managers in the pocket. The whole senior management team should lose their bonus and a proportion of salary, it should be possible after all a lowly checkout operator on minimum wage has to make up discrepancies from their salary if the till is short.
Do you remember the fairytale about the emperors new clothes? See what you make of my modern day interpretation.
A Government who cares too much about PR and too little about railways hires swindlers (you know who!) and they promise to build the finest Railway for the cheapest price. This work, they tell Government, is invisible to anyone who was is either stupid or not fit for his position. The Government is nervous about being able to see the work so it creates Network Rail to deal with the swindlers. They see nothing yet praise the work. When the swindlers report that the work will soon be finished, the Government allows itself to take all the glory on a PR campaign. During the course of the campaign, a Train Operating Company shouts out, "But no work has been done!" The public realises the Train Operator is telling the truth and mocks the government. The Government, however, holds it's head high and continues the PR campaign placing all the blame on Network Rail who in turn blame the swindlers. The Government punishes Network Rail by taking away the tax payers money that should have been used to improve the Railway. Network Rail punishes the swindlers by giving them even more contracts!!! The question is, who is the loser?

Network Fail - Again! 03.01.08

This morning was a bit of a shock to the system, Robbie's contorted travel plans involved me being woken at 5am and kick started with a nice hot cup of tea. Very reluctantly I dragged myself out of a warm and comfortable bed to take Robbie to Kettering at 6am. It is worse for Robbie because he had to make a long, cold, time wasting rail journey, but as I drove home again I was thinking evil thoughts about Network Rail - but I suspect I wasn't the only one!! Before we even set out for the station they had a spokesman for Virgin Trains talking about the problems caused by Network Rail failing to manage the engineering works effectively. I think the Virgin spokesman was called Arthur something or other, I think he must have been the night shift, but he got his message across fairly well. Chris Gibb was on Radio 4 at a slightly more civilised hour, he was clear and down to earth and his words were measured and reasonable. He used the word 'staggered' several times to describe the mismanagement of the work at Rugby by Network Rail. Perhaps it was a good thing that he was on Radio rather than TV because I suspect that his expression may have betrayed his thoughts!

Robbie got to work just after 9am, but his journey had been much more comfortable than the coach that he would have been forced to use if he had travelled from Northampton. He hates getting to work late, but even when he settled down in front of his computer he had to wade through a flood of spam email that had accumulated over Christmas. Apparently he was inundated with invitations to enlarge his manhood and advertisements for viagra, Robbie had no need of either, but after some of the limp excuses this morning maybe he should have forwarded the email to Network Rail!

The failings of Network Rail dominated the news bulletins all day and Virgin Trains had mobilised their SWAT team to ensure that even the most dense listener understood that they were the innocent victims rather than the perpetrator of the chaos. James Kennedy an area manager for Virgin Trains informed us that they had lost faith in information coming from Network Rail. Tony Collins Virgin Trains CEO told us that Network Rail got it wrong and they were guilty of unrealistic planning. He went on to explain that the reason for the engineering delay was a shortage of overhead electrification line men (I will forgive him for being sexist on this occasion as he was probably not having a good day). Nigel Harris editor of Rail magazine agreed that the root of the problem was poor management at Network Rail. As usual Gwyneth Dunwoody Chair of the Commons Transport Committee said that this was the result of breaking up the rail network into private companies. British Rail was pretty diabolical when it came to delays and they were hopeless at providing passengers with adequate information, but she has conveniently forgotten that. Theresa Villiers the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport accused Network rail of mismanagement and said that we should also blame the government (who created Network Rail) because Network Rail was not accountable enough to customers and passengers. She said the regulator should have greater sanctions available to them. Finally Network Rail offered a spokesperson. Robin Gisby who rejoices in the title of Director of Operations and Customer Service at Network Rail sounded as if was standing in front of a firing squad. I can only describe his incoherent ramblings as total claptrap, but I couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for him - customer services? Network Rail? he's never likely to achieve his performance targets is he!!

A slightly less measured Chris Gibb was on the radio again at tea time. He blamed Network Rail for bad planning and bad communication, he said the delay and the disruption to customers was not understandable and it was not acceptable. When asked about the promise from Network Rail to hand over the line at 5am on Friday, he was adamant that his contingency arrangements would remain in place. When asked if he didn't believe them he said "I haven't had a promise delivered by them in the past week". The art of understatement! he would probably make a good spy because he seem extremely cool when under pressure.

To conclude my ramblings, the most remarkable aspect of the day is not the media coup by Virgin Trains but the fact that is the first time I can recall that there has been a railway related news story and nobody has wheeled out Christian Wolmar - how refreshing!

Train Troubles 11.12.07

I have been busy moving the blog to a new site, the task of transferring all the old posts is taking longer than I expected, partly because I stop and read the entries and partly because it involves finding and moving photos too. The new space allows me more freedom to set out the blog the way I want it and I can add additional sections to the blog. During my train journey on Saturday I was able to read an article about adding news feeds to a blog and I was keen to have a go. Adding the feed was easy enough but I haven't quite mastered the next step, specifically excluding articles. I decided to have a UK railway news link on the new blog, so i entered all the target labels, but when i entered the name Barry Doe I got loads of dubious american stuff and I couldn't exclude it so I had to remove that target for the time being. No doubt I will get the fine tuning sorted out in the end. At least there is a news feed on the new blog now.
There was a very good article about train rebranding in the Times online, it is worth a look.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3031169.ece

An Attempt to Justify the Unjustifiable 29.11.07

The rail industry hit the headlines again today for all the wrong reasons. The latest fare increases were announced, and as expected they have increased significantly more than the rate of inflation. Some fares are capped by the government and they will rise by inflation plus 1% but the rest will increase by anything up to 11%. It seemed that every time I turned on the radio or TV a different selection of railway bods were squirming and stuttering in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable! I know the Prime Minister has been doing a whole lot of squirming for different reasons this week, but I think somebody ought to be asking him some probing questions about this too because it has his government's mucky fingerprints all over it. The government wants more trains, more carriages and more people to travel by public transport, great, but what are they doing about it? They are promising a 7% increase in the number of trains, but there is a 40% increase in the number of passengers! If they really believe all the stuff they spout about sustainable public transport and the need to reduce our impact on the environment then they really must put their money where their mouth is! Correction, I mean our money, tax payers money (they just like to pretend it is their money!). To have a coherent public transport system they have to bite the bullet and tax motorists, airlines etc and invest in the railways and in bus services.

I know it is hard for the government to understand, but you can't change things by just talking about it, they actually have to do something to bring about change. I am just an ordinary person and I don't know anything about the railways, but I know when I am being conned and the present situation is little short of exploitation. Many commuters have no choice about the train service they use to get to work and some have no viable option except rail transport, but they are still customers and they are entitled to expect a basic level of service which includes decent station facilities, accurate information, punctuality and a seat! I was amazed to discover that there is usually no penalty for trains being overcrowded and this is not included in the performance criteria of the train operating companies. It is ridiculous to expect rail passengers to pay extortionate fares, because many can and do vote with their feet. I enjoy visiting family in Devon and Cornwall and it is nice to travel by train rather than taking the car but the snag is that once we get there the public transport connections are almost non existent and the return rail fare would cost £548 for me, Robbie, Emily, Laura and Sam! If I drive I add a few miles to the car and I can get up to 7 people there and back on a tank of diesel (about £65). Until this ridiculous situation changes people like me will not use the railways!

Waste Not Want Not 13.07.07

I glanced at the bedside clock, it was 02.24 and I still had not gone to sleep. I had been tired when I went to bed but my brain wouldn't switch off and as I had settled down to sleep a new thought had crossed my mind and now I was too angry to sleep. The thought was what happens to all the wasted uniform when a rail franchise is lost? I started to do the maths and even with fairly low estimates it was clear that we are talking about a huge waste of money. When you then factor in all the other costs associated with rebranding from new train livery to stationary the amount must be unthinkable. No wonder they want to massively increase rail fares. The more I thought about it the angrier I became, an obscene amount of money is wasted each time a franchise changes hands, how can we possibly justify that when there are other fare more important needs that cannot be met due to lack of resources. I must have fallen asleep at some point, but I awoke when the alarm clock burst in on my dreams an I felt as if I had hardly slept. I learned most about economics from my grandmother who like most of her generation had known true poverty as a child and had endured the hardships of two world wars as an adult. She understood cost and value far better than anyone who claims to be an economist, she thought it was wicked to waste resources (as I found to my cost when I didn't want to eat my dinner). In the present when we are so conscious of our global footprint waste on the scale described above is unforgivable.

Beyond Reason 12.07.07

I am rarely speechless and to be lost for words twice in the same week is something I have never experienced before. The news about the Cross Country franchise just won't sink in because it is so perverse. I have tried so hard to make sense of it, I have looked at the DFT website and various other sites and I have made some interesting observations but there is nothing to make sense of this decision. I looked hard at the photo of Rail Minister Tom Harris hoping that I could communicate my thoughts to him telepathically (because they are not printable!). Suddenly I realised that he bears a stunning resemblance to Jeffrey Archer - so that adds to his credibility big style!! Actually his own track record would lead you to much the same conclusion, I wonder if he has ever seen a train.

Thinking about credibility led my thoughts to Chris Gibb MD of Cross Country Trains, and what will happen to him. I don't suppose Arriva got him when they got the franchise and he will be a big loss. It is rare in the rail industry to find someone articulate enough to present rail information clearly in the media is rare, it is even more rare to find someone articulate who's looks do not make the viewing public flee for cover. He has quite an interesting face. Most important of all he has done a good job and he has the respect and loyalty of employees.

It seems to me that the government have got this whole rail franchise thing wrong. I know people say to re-nationalise the railways, but I remember travelling to and from London in the days of BR when I was a student, it was grim to say the least. I think more of a true privatisation is the answer. With the present set up there is so much uncertainty and franchises are relatively short in the region of 9-10 years. When you account for the time to put the bids together - many months, the uncertainty and waiting time - more months, the limbo time leading up to the transfer and the induction period for the new company. That represents huge costs and something close to two years of wasted unproductive time and it can't possibly represent good customer service or good value (not to mention good sense). If you compare that with the way the government manages PFI contracts for schools, hospitals etc. the inconsistencies are obvious. They award contracts for 20 or even 30 years, to allow the provider to recoup investment via charges, lettings and provision of ancillary services. Admittedly their track record with PFI is not great, but the principle is the same. Imagine what could be achieved if much longer franchises were awarded with clear targets and a defined minimum standard. Hitting targets would trigger a financial gain for the company, but the company would only loose the franchise the minimum standards were not met. It would make so much more sense.

Anyway I have been trawling the web for reactions to the franchise announcement and I have been amazed by the support for Virgin while nobody has a good word for Arriva. Here is a selection of the comments I found and also a couple of links to other sites

perfectly sensible decision. brilliant thinking to stop virgins contract - who have invested in new stock, new facilities and have made train travel enjoyable, to replace them with manky rolling stock from the late 70's - reduce the bogs on board, take the shops off the trains, cram more people in the trains and charge more. what a brilliant move to increase the number of people choosing public transport.
i've had the arriva experience out of manchester. the decor would instil a migraine in a dead donkey. the trolley service was awful and the train was packed solid after 2 stops.
looks like i'll keep driving my land rover - it might be old and a bit frayed, but it's more reliable and cheaper than the trains
If Arriva run trains like they run buses in Bristol and other close locations then, Virgin will be back next time.

Arriva should never have been let near another railway company after the mess they made of running services in the North of England a few years back.

Living in exeter i have used this route frequently for years and virgin have put on one of the best train services in the country, and one of the best i have lived under... This entire decision seems completely and utterly idiotic.. Virgin have had clean trains, great staff, tolerable buffet and pretty good ticket prices if you can find the deals..
Arriva on the other hand I had the joy of living in wales and suffering there intolerable service for a while and never again... Guess flybe have just picked up a new air traveller...

That Arriva probably the worst of existing rail franchise operators wins the Cross Country franchise is yet another farcicle decision from the most farcical of governmental organisation the D(a)fT who come out of the swamp every so often to destroy yet another aspect of a steadily deteriorating rail service. They took over from the SRA and make a declaration ask for comments, ignore the customer comments and sink back into the swamp. only to rise again and tell everyone that their original proposal is the one they will go forward with. They then ask for bids, but D(a)fT do not tell us what the rival bids were so how are we to know we are getting good (best) value, D(a)fT are judge and jury in their own case. They have defined the franchise and ignore public concerns about it. Then when it goes bottom up they hide back in the civil service anonymity swamp.

http://forums.atomic-systems.com/viewtopic.php?p=848254&CUTHERE=6c95174ecf3fd7ba881463c7cacabdd2

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1078142007

A Bad Decision 10.07.07

There are some days when it is very hard to face the day with a smile and today was just such a day. It was about 7.14am and we were embarking on another morning in the mad house, and with less than half an hour before Sam and I needed to leave the house the stress levels were already sky high. The phone rang and as soon as I heard Robbie's voice I knew he was going to tell me that Virgin had lost the Cross Country franchise. He was gutted and I was gutted for him. You could not find anybody who loves their job more than Robbie does and he takes a real pride in the service the company provides. To him it feels so unfair, and even now having had all day to make sense of it, I feel as if there will to be another announcement to say it was all a big mistake, but of course it's not going to happen.

I'm just an ordinary person, what do I know about trains - not a lot (but probably more than the DFT). However I am a woman and a wife so I know when the wool is being pulled over my eyes and I know a lie when I come across it. I also know that value and service is about far more than price. Another thing about being a wife, I can read between the lines, in fact looking at today's press release, I think my dog could read between the lines! To borrow a phrase from Jim Royal - customer service my ****!! Those chinless wonders at the DFT will have plenty of time to observe the consequences of their decision, but of course by then they will be meddling with something else that works to see if they can come up with another 'success' on the scale of Worst Late Western! If I could get my hands on those lame brains I would explain economics so simply that even they would understand. If you buy something from the pound shop you should expect to end up with tat!

Abandoned 25.06.07

I have been abandoned yet again, this time he has gone to Darlington to a Train Planners Meeting and he is not due back until late tomorrow. Robbie had a terrible journey this morning, he had to take a very complicated route involving 5 trains because many routes were closed due to flooding. Have you noticed that there are always extreme weather conditions when he travels to meetings etc., last time it was the gales.

It is very quiet at home, maybe he could be stranded at Darlington for days!

The John Wayne Look 22.06.07

After a busy and challenging day I sat down with this weeks issue of Rail. Like most people I don't start at the beginning of the magazine and work through in a methodical manner, I browse stopping at whatever takes my fancy along the way. I read the article on West Coast Railways, then my attention was caught by the article on the spring National Passenger Survey results. It came as no surprise to find FGW languishing in the relegation zone at the bottom of the league in terms of satisfaction and value for money. Maybe their fictional track, non existent seats and fantasy timetable were not such a good idea after all!

I thumbed the pages towards the front of the magazine and was startled to come across an alarming picture of Chris Gibb holding a urine sample! Ok I admit he is fairly easy on the eye compared to many other railway people, but bodily fluids in rail magazine - surely not! When I recovered from the initial horror I realised he was proudly displaying a sample of bio-diesel at the launch of the first bio-diesel train in UK. I think it is a hopeful sign and if the government sort out the nonsense regarding tax on bio-diesel maybe the railways can become a little greener, but please no more scary photos!

I found another photo of Chris Gibb on the Christian Wolmar page, he was still waving the dratted 'urine sample' but this time he was standing in front of the Voyager with a group of Virgin CrossCountry staff. I am sure they are all nice people but the Voyager is the star of the show, so please move the people and let us look at the Voyager. While on the subject of photos, why do all male Virgin employees stand like that? I can only describe it as the 'John Wayne look' - to put it bluntly they stand with their legs so far appart that they look as if they have just got off a horse!