Mr. Cocque, you've named two serious transport matters. That doesn't make the third a crisis.
If I murder a child and set fire to an oil refinery and then have a cheese sandwich, the first two crimes don't make the third an illegal act.
I'd say the fare rises are definitely a crisis. These are dangerous times for any government, and bad news like this requires skillful handling. And they've got Chris Grayling.
I'm a regular train and tube user (less so the buses oddly enough). Most of the time, when it works, it's okay.
The tubes are struggling to cope with the volume of passengers. It's 5-deep at East Ham at 7am but you'd better believe there are very few white collar commuters. Most of those waiting are migrant workers, mainly skilled but others just labouring, who travel to construction sites all over London.
As for South Western Railways, on those days when a good service operates, it's fine and I'm lucky as I travel against the flow. However, SWR seems incredibly vulnerable to problems with the infrastructure and of course to those events euphemistically described as "customer incidents" (and I expect we'll see some of those this month). The dislocation seems to take an inordinately long time to clear when something happens and it seems down to train crew being in the wrong place.
But even if it's the party bigwigs deciding, the party in general is becoming increasingly Trumpified, and in any case they'll be terrified of upsetting Trump's supporters, who have highly-developed conspiracy theory skills.
The problem is not that the Deep State exists, but that it does not. The Deep State needs to start existing immediately and deal with Trump.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
A speed restriction over defective track between Romford and London Liverpool Street is causing disruption to journeys running towards London. Train services may be delayed by up to 25 minutes or cancelled.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
Commuters in soft Tory marginals use lots of trains.
And, even for those that don't, the perception of the government constantly letting rail operating companies fail upwards is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with the way public services are run in the UK.
I was thinking this morning, have we had a secretary of state with such wide-ranging and multivariate ineptitudes as Chris Grayling before?
Grayling has managed to have not one, not two, but THREE crises in the space of one fortnight's holiday.
There were Labour leafletters at my station this morning handing out literature putting the boot in over the 3% fair rise.
I thought Rail Fares went up every January. And I’m not sure what Grayling could have done about the drone. The Ferry issue does seem serious and his reported comments don’t reassure. It seemed so inept that I thought that he must have been messing it up to make Remain look more palatable but when I checked he is a leaver so doubly inept!
I remember going to see my daughter in Gronnigen last year. We had to switch between 2 trains about half way there maybe 50 miles north of Amsterdam. The helpful clerk explained (in perfect English, natch) that there were 2 minutes between them but it was ok because they would be on opposing platforms. When I suggested that this might cause a problem she looked a little confused. It didn't of course. Our first train arrived to the minute when it should have done and the other left exactly on time. Dutch trains have drivers but operate with a level of precision and reliability that we simply cannot imagine. They were pretty cheap too.
It began with the Big Bang, 14 billion years ago, and will terminate soon enough with the opposite state of affairs, the Universe infinitely diffused, cold and dark, all matter lifeless and drifting apart at the speed of light. At this juncture, nothing will ever again change, and since the essence of time is that it allows change to occur, it will be the end of time, the end of everything, the END. Such is not a possibility, nor even a probability. It is certain. Hence no active market on Betfair.
Not so easy to predict whether Mitt Romney will challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020. I imagine he might if he believes that either (i) he will win, or (ii) if he doesn’t, that it will significantly damage Trump’s chances of a second term. I have Romney (like the Bushes) down as a Republican who would rather a Democrat in the White House than the horror who currently occupies it.
I'm a regular train and tube user (less so the buses oddly enough). Most of the time, when it works, it's okay.
The tubes are struggling to cope with the volume of passengers. It's 5-deep at East Ham at 7am but you'd better believe there are very few white collar commuters. Most of those waiting are migrant workers, mainly skilled but others just labouring, who travel to construction sites all over London.
As for South Western Railways, on those days when a good service operates, it's fine and I'm lucky as I travel against the flow. However, SWR seems incredibly vulnerable to problems with the infrastructure and of course to those events euphemistically described as "customer incidents" (and I expect we'll see some of those this month). The dislocation seems to take an inordinately long time to clear when something happens and it seems down to train crew being in the wrong place.
TfL services are brilliant in my view, both buses and tubes. And they have improved enormously in recent years under mayors of both parties. Reliability is way better than dismal Southern Rail which is my local TOC.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months
My main frustration with the railways is that the Chase Line still hasn't got its electric trains seven months after they were due to start. Which is doubly frustrating as when they do start we should get direct services to Coventry and London every half an hour plus services to Birmingham every fifteen minutes.
There was a delay in putting up the stanchions. Apparently they discovered a large number of mineworkings that complicated the process.
One can only wonder at the fuckwittery of a plan to electrify a mineral extension across a large coalfield which didn't take into account the probability of mine workings.
Edit - and this of course was the nationalised section screwing up.
I'm a regular train and tube user (less so the buses oddly enough). Most of the time, when it works, it's okay.
The tubes are struggling to cope with the volume of passengers. It's 5-deep at East Ham at 7am but you'd better believe there are very few white collar commuters. Most of those waiting are migrant workers, mainly skilled but others just labouring, who travel to construction sites all over London.
As for South Western Railways, on those days when a good service operates, it's fine and I'm lucky as I travel against the flow. However, SWR seems incredibly vulnerable to problems with the infrastructure and of course to those events euphemistically described as "customer incidents" (and I expect we'll see some of those this month). The dislocation seems to take an inordinately long time to clear when something happens and it seems down to train crew being in the wrong place.
The SWR network is uniquely vulnerable in that the SW mainline and Windsor lines are pretty much independent. Ultimately it's a trade off between efficiency and contingency. It is far more efficient to roster train crew to switch between suburban, mainline and Windsor line services. But that comes at the cost of delays spreading across the network when things go wrong.
And remember, the efficiency is for the government.
Railway stations should be at least partly controlled by local authorities. Their impact on local economies and placemaking takes second fiddle today to the operating company’s desire to maximise revenue (often unimaginatively).
Only a few of the larger railway stations - pre-eminently London St. Pancras - are places you’d want to spend any time. Most of them are draughty and depressing.
While I agree with your solution, the issue isn't so much the operating company's desire to maximise revenue - that can generally work in harmony with place-making. The problem is that because most operating companies can't see beyond the next franchise renewal, they have no incentive to invest for the long term. Why put captal into improving a station only for another TOC to reap the benefits?
Most recent research shows 80% satisfaction with passengers’ experience of stations... increasing c. 10% points over the previous decade... from that, it doesn’t seem to be a priority requiring radical changes like joint-operation with local authorities (though I’m sure the mass transport operating functions of the latter would be up to the challenge).
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
A sizeable minority live in areas poorly served by railways.
Rail commuters are a particularly important swing constituency, age wise and also coming from suburban marginal seats. Parties should not neglect them.
I travel by rail a few times per year, most recently to the Isle of Wight for New Year, but we do need to consider rail subsidies and pricing as a part of a larger picture. If we want to reduce road congestion, air pollution, and spread the availibility of work for social inclusion then public transport needs to be reliable and cheap.
It began with the Big Bang, 14 billion years ago, and will terminate soon enough with the opposite state of affairs, the Universe infinitely diffused, cold and dark, all matter lifeless and drifting apart at the speed of light. At this juncture, nothing will ever again change, and since the essence of time is that it allows change to occur, it will be the end of time, the end of everything, the END. Such is not a possibility, nor even a probability. It is certain. Hence no active market on Betfair.
Not so easy to predict whether Mitt Romney will challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020. I imagine he might if he believes that either (i) he will win, or (ii) if he doesn’t, that it will significantly damage Trump’s chances of a second term. I have Romney (like the Bushes) down as a Republican who would rather a Democrat in the White House than the horror who currently occupies it.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
Commuters in soft Tory marginals use lots of trains.
And, even for those that don't, the perception of the government constantly letting rail operating companies fail upwards is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with the way public services are run in the UK.
This is the main problem with Capitalism at the moment. It requires failure, which Governments don’t appear to want to allow. With the PFI companies, they should be obligated to run services, if not able to do so then the business should be allowed to fail, and staff Transferred to public sector. Why is it necessary to bail out or cancel contracts to offer better terms. The government still seems to take on the risk!
It began with the Big Bang, 14 billion years ago, and will terminate soon enough with the opposite state of affairs, the Universe infinitely diffused, cold and dark, all matter lifeless and drifting apart at the speed of light. At this juncture, nothing will ever again change, and since the essence of time is that it allows change to occur, it will be the end of time, the end of everything, the END. Such is not a possibility, nor even a probability. It is certain. Hence no active market on Betfair.
It began with the Big Bang, 14 billion years ago, and will terminate soon enough with the opposite state of affairs, the Universe infinitely diffused, cold and dark, all matter lifeless and drifting apart at the speed of light. At this juncture, nothing will ever again change, and since the essence of time is that it allows change to occur, it will be the end of time, the end of everything, the END. Such is not a possibility, nor even a probability. It is certain. Hence no active market on Betfair.
Not so easy to predict whether Mitt Romney will challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020. I imagine he might if he believes that either (i) he will win, or (ii) if he doesn’t, that it will significantly damage Trump’s chances of a second term. I have Romney (like the Bushes) down as a Republican who would rather a Democrat in the White House than the horror who currently occupies it.
The other aspect of Betfairs lack of a market on the end of time is the small matter of collecting winnings.
Mr. Cocque, Grayling's inept, but a 3% price rise is not a crisis.
It might not be, if it wasn't for him reeling from the drone fiasco, and on the hook for what appears to be massive corruption over Seaborne Freight.
A more skilled Transport Secretary might be able to ride out the storm, if they weren't already deep in the shit.
Grayling is not that man.
Grayling has shown a truly astonishing lack of talent or ability at everything he has ever done in the public eye. And yet he is still there. He's been in the cabinet since 2012. If there is one thing that he seems to be good at, despite all the disasters in his wake, its surviving.
Railway stations should be at least partly controlled by local authorities. Their impact on local economies and placemaking takes second fiddle today to the operating company’s desire to maximise revenue (often unimaginatively).
Only a few of the larger railway stations - pre-eminently London St. Pancras - are places you’d want to spend any time. Most of them are draughty and depressing.
While I agree with your solution, the issue isn't so much the operating company's desire to maximise revenue - that can generally work in harmony with place-making. The problem is that because most operating companies can't see beyond the next franchise renewal, they have no incentive to invest for the long term. Why put captal into improving a station only for another TOC to reap the benefits?
Most recent research shows 80% satisfaction with passengers’ experience of stations... increasing c. 10% points over the previous decade... from that, it doesn’t seem to be a priority requiring radical changes like joint-operation with local authorities (though I’m sure the mass transport operating functions of the latter would be up to the challenge).
I think the pressure is off stations a bit once you can get tickets and check times on the app. The only thing I really notice these days is toilets, availability and price of. (I guess if I were a wheelchair user the station becomes a much bigger issue)
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
A sizeable minority live in areas poorly served by railways.
Rail commuters are a particularly important swing constituency, age wise and also coming from suburban marginal seats. Parties should not neglect them.
I travel by rail a few times per year, most recently to the Isle of Wight for New Year, but we do need to consider rail subsidies and pricing as a part of a larger picture. If we want to reduce road congestion, air pollution, and spread the availibility of work for social inclusion then public transport needs to be reliable and cheap.
Quite. And just about every country I can think of (apart from the US maybe?) subsidises train services from the public purse. China has built 25000 km of new high speed lines in the last decade.
Satisfaction with UK trains compares favourably to the rest of the continent, albeit the trend is negative.
Expectations probably play a part in that.
Someone from Chiltern once told me that they noticed that their Twitter traffic becomes far more angry as passengers closer to London board the trains.
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
Mr. Cocque, you've named two serious transport matters. That doesn't make the third a crisis.
If I murder a child and set fire to an oil refinery and then have a cheese sandwich, the first two crimes don't make the third an illegal act.
I'd say the fare rises are definitely a crisis. These are dangerous times for any government, and bad news like this requires skillful handling. And they've got Chris Grayling.
You mean train fares increasing on exactly the same formula in 2019 that they have every year for the previous fifteen years?
It began with the Big Bang, 14 billion years ago, and will terminate soon enough with the opposite state of affairs, the Universe infinitely diffused, cold and dark, all matter lifeless and drifting apart at the speed of light. At this juncture, nothing will ever again change, and since the essence of time is that it allows change to occur, it will be the end of time, the end of everything, the END. Such is not a possibility, nor even a probability. It is certain. Hence no active market on Betfair.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
A sizeable minority live in areas poorly served by railways.
Rail commuters are a particularly important swing constituency, age wise and also coming from suburban marginal seats. Parties should not neglect them.
I travel by rail a few times per year, most recently to the Isle of Wight for New Year, but we do need to consider rail subsidies and pricing as a part of a larger picture. If we want to reduce road congestion, air pollution, and spread the availibility of work for social inclusion then public transport needs to be reliable and cheap.
The most cost effective public transport are buses. They are more able to reach more communities more quickly. There should be some thought as to how we improve bus interaction with road network. In Bristol close to where I live there is the new Metrobus which has seen additional link roads and bus lanes to improve journey times. I would like to see this extended so that camera controlled routes are bus only access to avoid pinch points (this could be linked to cycle routes too). We should also look at more out of town interchanges. Bus services too often rely on a hub and spoke routes rather than circular routes.
One of the many reasons I don’t use public toilets.
Train passengers have been asked to behave responsibly after a bra was flushed down a toilet, causing a blockage.
Virgin Trains said that four toilets are being taken out of service every day as a result of people using them incorrectly.
This meant 18,000 lost toilet hours every year with a repair bill of more than £180,000.
The bra is not the only strange item to be found down the toilet on the operator's Pendolino trains - with glasses, wedding rings, nappies and a football scarf also causing plumbing problems.
More than 90% of the blockages were caused by wet wipes - and even those labelled as being flushable were clogging pipes.
Although as a pedant I’d point out government spending increased under Osborne.
The Tories' dirty little secret.
It isn't really fair to blame Osborne for the centre failing to hold. Centrism is dying across the planet.
I don't want this to sound like I'm saying blame Blair, if anything given my political leaning arguably I could credit Blair instead...
But surely Blair takes a portion of the credit, whilst there are still many people who like Blair and his politics it seems to me that in a way he helped push people back to the left. The Lib Dems (at times), the Greens and especially the SNP all did well by being to the left (if only in appearance sometimes) of Labour. Some of this was after Blair had gone but Labour at that time was still heavily associated with New Labour. Ed had started to move away from that but arguably it was still a strong association and a strong influence on the party.
My understanding is the SNP were majoring on the red Tory jibes a few years ago, the idea that we were all the same was a profitable one for many political parties and was partially to do with Blair.
Just to clarify before anyone has a go at me this isn't my way of saying Blair is a bad person or anything.
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
We'll just have to try to cope Roger. And a happy new year to you too.
Dreadful accident on the railway in Denmark this morning... like most serious incidents, seems to be the result of a number of factors coming together...
One third of trains operated by Norhtern and TransPennine Express were late or cancelled
No details of the time period for that claim - and no source given.
Am fairly certain TPE has a better record than Northern.
Is a bit cheeky to lump the two together.
I honestly don't think so after the initial mess. Northern run plenty of commuter lines that just pottered on their normal way after May and didn't hit tthe worst pinch points round Manchester and Bolton. They also appear to have improved a lot (from my views at Victoria and Huddersfield) since the summer.
TPE have had an ongoing nightmare, not least having taken over the Hull/Leeds-Piccadilly stopping services. I see 75% of the franchise's entire hourly service schedule on my commute, and 66% (worst month average, I would think) wouldn't surprise me at all.
That Osborne is editing a newspaper and not in government pains me a lot, that’s why I didn’t comment on your pun.
George Osborne CH would not have given Corbyn and a McDonnell a free pass economy at GE2017.
Osborne's austerity agenda is what gave us Corbyn in the first place.
It wasn’t his agenda, it was economic reality.
Plus the only time the Tories have a won a majority this millennium is after five years of austerity.
Although as a pedant I’d point out government spending increased under Osborne.
Shush.... It is totally true... What we saw was a recalibrating of resources towards health and education at mostly the expense of local authorities and police.
Mr. Cocque, Grayling's inept, but a 3% price rise is not a crisis.
It might not be, if it wasn't for him reeling from the drone fiasco, and on the hook for what appears to be massive corruption over Seaborne Freight.
A more skilled Transport Secretary might be able to ride out the storm, if they weren't already deep in the shit.
Grayling is not that man.
What’s your evidence for “massive corruption”?
Seaborne should (assuming the DfT has done their job) be on the hook for delivering on the contract. For a start up operation I’d want a parent company guarantee or a shareholder bond of some kind as well.
Going with bigger businesses when they may not be the best option is one of the worst biases in public sector procurement
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
I’m sure someone on a council estate in Hull is weeping into his bacon butty after contemplating that a riviera based ad exec is struggling to describe his hatred of him. I think it’s described as a first world problem.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
A sizeable minority live in areas poorly served by railways.
Rail commuters are a particularly important swing constituency, age wise and also coming from suburban marginal seats. Parties should not neglect them.
I travel by rail a few times per year, most recently to the Isle of Wight for New Year, but we do need to consider rail subsidies and pricing as a part of a larger picture. If we want to reduce road congestion, air pollution, and spread the availibility of work for social inclusion then public transport needs to be reliable and cheap.
Exactly, there are lots of other benefits of cheap and reliable public transport outside of merely subsidising the person doing the travelling.
Satisfaction with UK trains compares favourably to the rest of the continent, albeit the trend is negative.
Expectations probably play a part in that.
Someone from Chiltern once told me that they noticed that their Twitter traffic becomes far more angry as passengers closer to London board the trains.
So as the train people discover they can't get a seat.
The fares seem designed to confuse, baffle and cheat. Season ticket prices seem to increase more than your pay packet each year. Good luck getting a seat. If the train isn't cancelled. Or on strike.
BR may have been rubbish, but people got the perception that because it wasn't run by the private sector, there was no deliberate attempt to pick their pockets. It was incompetence rather than malice. That perception is very different now.
Yes, that's something of more general application. The probvlem of the public sector is that they're perceived as often inefficient. The problem of the private sector is that they're perceived to often want to rip you off. Where there is genuine competition (breakfast cereal, say, or broadband providers), it's easy to switch to one that seems to offer better value - even the mos hardened Trot is not demanding British Rice Krispies. But natural monopolies that are private combine the temptation to rip you off with the means to do it without comeback.
The most irritating thing about private sector pricing - thinking of broadband but also almost all insurance nowadays - is how sticking with renewing with the same company gets you ripped off, unless you go through the annual routine of phoning them up and making a fuss. It's probably the one financial feature of the modern world that actually goes against the older generation.
I agree. You’d have thought it’s a waste of everyone’s time and there would be a code they could apply so you dont have to use 15 minutes of call centre time
We all get better prices at the expense of those who dont bother. British Gas are so awful at ripping their customers off and make such good margins off people who like to "stick with what we know"(said in a northern yorkshire voice) that they create a new subsidiary that sells the same product with the same call handlers at the same desks with the same desks, name it Sainsbury's Energy. They can compete for the savvy customer, which they might barely make a ha'penny a unit on while keep their standard tariff customers that they'll be creaming off 5 or 6p a unit off.
Dreadful accident on the railway in Denmark this morning... like most serious incidents, seems to be the result of a number of factors coming together...
Pointless and almost certainly incorrect speculation time:
Two potential causes:
1) The wind blew one of the trains out of gauge (or a vehicle off a wagon) and into the side of the other one: ISTR fora while that that was assumed to be a causal factor of the Tay Bridge disaster: the wind had blown the train into the bridge structure, helping it fail.
Romney's an interesting candidate from the anti-Trump side but it's also worth thinking about who would be the *Trumpist* non-Trump candidate. This is particularly important if Trump meets with misfortune after some or all of the primaries have taken place, because he's already got a bunch of delegates sewn up. But even if it's the party bigwigs deciding, the party in general is becoming increasingly Trumpified, and in any case they'll be terrified of upsetting Trump's supporters, who have highly-developed conspiracy theory skills.
If Trump is still alive in this situation then his endorsement becomes important; Obviously Pence is possible, but Trump will want somebody who's shown loyalty to him personally, in which case the obvious choice is Newt Gingrich.
Only if the Republicans are absolutely determined to lose at all costs.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months
My main frustration with the railways is that the Chase Line still hasn't got its electric trains seven months after they were due to start. Which is doubly frustrating as when they do start we should get direct services to Coventry and London every half an hour plus services to Birmingham every fifteen minutes.
There was a delay in putting up the stanchions. Apparently they discovered a large number of mineworkings that complicated the process.
One can only wonder at the fuckwittery of a plan to electrify a mineral extension across a large coalfield which didn't take into account the probability of mine workings.
Edit - and this of course was the nationalised section screwing up.
TBF unless they did a complete survey of the site they wouldn’t have known of the precise locations of the mine workings
Probability of existence is not sufficient in this case.
It's almost as if the last government spunked lots of money on welfare to try and buy voters, and the new government just corrected it back before the splurge.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months
My main frustration with the railways is that the Chase Line still hasn't got its electric trains seven months after they were due to start. Which is doubly frustrating as when they do start we should get direct services to Coventry and London every half an hour plus services to Birmingham every fifteen minutes.
There was a delay in putting up the stanchions. Apparently they discovered a large number of mineworkings that complicated the process.
One can only wonder at the fuckwittery of a plan to electrify a mineral extension across a large coalfield which didn't take into account the probability of mine workings.
Edit - and this of course was the nationalised section screwing up.
TBF unless they did a complete survey of the site they wouldn’t have known of the precise locations of the mine workings
Probability of existence is not sufficient in this case.
Are you saying that you would normally expect a major building project under such circumstances to go ahead without a survey?
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months
My main frustration with the railways is that the Chase Line still hasn't got its electric trains seven months after they were due to start. Which is doubly frustrating as when they do start we should get direct services to Coventry and London every half an hour plus services to Birmingham every fifteen minutes.
There was a delay in putting up the stanchions. Apparently they discovered a large number of mineworkings that complicated the process.
One can only wonder at the fuckwittery of a plan to electrify a mineral extension across a large coalfield which didn't take into account the probability of mine workings.
Edit - and this of course was the nationalised section screwing up.
TBF unless they did a complete survey of the site they wouldn’t have known of the precise locations of the mine workings
Probability of existence is not sufficient in this case.
It's more complex than that AIUI: plenty of electrifications in the old days were completed despite such difficulties, so why are they a problem now? It's probably many things: lost institutional memory (one big failing of Railtrack), poor surveys, different portal designs, and increased safety factors: you cannot assume the ground is safe.
Mr. Cocque, Grayling's inept, but a 3% price rise is not a crisis.
It might not be, if it wasn't for him reeling from the drone fiasco, and on the hook for what appears to be massive corruption over Seaborne Freight.
A more skilled Transport Secretary might be able to ride out the storm, if they weren't already deep in the shit.
Grayling is not that man.
Grayling has shown a truly astonishing lack of talent or ability at everything he has ever done in the public eye. And yet he is still there. He's been in the cabinet since 2012. If there is one thing that he seems to be good at, despite all the disasters in his wake, its surviving.
Perhaps it's just that he gets mistaken for one of the solid marble statues which litter Westminster ?
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
"The devil damn them black, the gammon faced loons..." ?
It's almost as if the last government spunked lots of money on welfare to try and buy voters, and the new government just corrected it back before the splurge.
Interesting chart. The money (not) being spent on education is a real concern with serious implications for future productivity and indeed immigration. The spend on pensions is in those circumstances not much short of a disgrace.
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
I’m sure someone on a council estate in Hull is weeping into his bacon butty after contemplating that a riviera based ad exec is struggling to describe his hatred of him. I think it’s described as a first world problem.
Could you explain how Brexit is going to benefit people on council estates in Hull?
One of the many reasons I don’t use public toilets.
Train passengers have been asked to behave responsibly after a bra was flushed down a toilet, causing a blockage.
Virgin Trains said that four toilets are being taken out of service every day as a result of people using them incorrectly.
This meant 18,000 lost toilet hours every year with a repair bill of more than £180,000.
The bra is not the only strange item to be found down the toilet on the operator's Pendolino trains - with glasses, wedding rings, nappies and a football scarf also causing plumbing problems.
More than 90% of the blockages were caused by wet wipes - and even those labelled as being flushable were clogging pipes.
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
I believe a deal has been done on passport queues (in the way it has been done with lots of third party countries)
It is easier for many service industries to trade in the US than the EU at the moment. For instance, Hiscox had to create a Jersey based subsidiary because the EU wanted to force it to shut down its LatAm operation
Mr. Cocque, you've named two serious transport matters. That doesn't make the third a crisis.
If I murder a child and set fire to an oil refinery and then have a cheese sandwich, the first two crimes don't make the third an illegal act.
I'd say the fare rises are definitely a crisis. These are dangerous times for any government, and bad news like this requires skillful handling. And they've got Chris Grayling.
You mean train fares increasingcomplaints are on exactly the same formula in 2019 that they have every year for the previous fifteen years?
It's almost as if the last government spunked lots of money on welfare to try and buy voters, and the new government just corrected it back before the splurge.
Interesting chart. The money (not) being spent on education is a real concern with serious implications for future productivity and indeed immigration. The spend on pensions is in those circumstances not much short of a disgrace.
It isnt "money not been spent" its correction back from the splurge/stimulus. If you measure everything from a high that involved 25% of all resources been borrowed its going to look bad.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months
My main frustration with the railways is that the Chase Line still hasn't got its electric trains seven months after they were due to start. Which is doubly frustrating as when they do start we should get direct services to Coventry and London every half an hour plus services to Birmingham every fifteen minutes.
There was a delay in putting up the stanchions. Apparently they discovered a large number of mineworkings that complicated the process.
One can only wonder at the fuckwittery of a plan to electrify a mineral extension across a large coalfield which didn't take into account the probability of mine workings.
Edit - and this of course was the nationalised section screwing up.
TBF unless they did a complete survey of the site they wouldn’t have known of the precise locations of the mine workings
Probability of existence is not sufficient in this case.
Are you saying that you would normally expect a major building project under such circumstances to go ahead without a survey?
They probably did do surveys, but they're immensely difficult on what has been 'industrial' ground for 150 years. What you're looking for might be old bell-pits, only a few metres wide.
In 1993 a TGV derailed at 180MPH when a sinkhole formed under the track. The sinkhole was caused by old World War One trenches that had not been detected when the line was constructed a few years before. Detecting smaller bell pits must be very difficult, especially when you have tons of railway stuff (ballast, cabling etc) above.
As an aside, I recently walked on the moors above Buxton, where the coal board monitors old shafts. It's not the sort of place you expect to find old mine workings.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
A sizeable minority live in areas poorly served by railways.
Rail commuters are a particularly important swing constituency, age wise and also coming from suburban marginal seats. Parties should not neglect them.
I travel by rail a few times per year, most recently to the Isle of Wight for New Year, but we do need to consider rail subsidies and pricing as a part of a larger picture. If we want to reduce road congestion, air pollution, and spread the availibility of work for social inclusion then public transport needs to be reliable and cheap.
The most cost effective public transport are buses. They are more able to reach more communities more quickly. There should be some thought as to how we improve bus interaction with road network. In Bristol close to where I live there is the new Metrobus which has seen additional link roads and bus lanes to improve journey times. I would like to see this extended so that camera controlled routes are bus only access to avoid pinch points (this could be linked to cycle routes too). We should also look at more out of town interchanges. Bus services too often rely on a hub and spoke routes rather than circular routes.
Bus is important. One of the features of austerity in Leics was a reduction in bus services to outlying villages. It is a real problem for both the elderly and also commuters without cars.
Mr. Cocque, Grayling's inept, but a 3% price rise is not a crisis.
It might not be, if it wasn't for him reeling from the drone fiasco, and on the hook for what appears to be massive corruption over Seaborne Freight.
A more skilled Transport Secretary might be able to ride out the storm, if they weren't already deep in the shit.
Grayling is not that man.
Grayling has shown a truly astonishing lack of talent or ability at everything he has ever done in the public eye. And yet he is still there. He's been in the cabinet since 2012. If there is one thing that he seems to be good at, despite all the disasters in his wake, its surviving.
Perhaps it's just that he gets mistaken for one of the solid marble statues which litter Westminster ?
If only that were true. The really scary thing is that the Tories still think it is a good idea to let him speak to the media.
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
We'll just have to try to cope Roger. And a happy new year to you too.
A Happy New Year to you too though I can't see much to be happy about. We as a nation are barking mad.
You can't by definition put a time on the end of time itself. You have to come up with a different measurement. I'm working on it but am not there yet. What I can say is that there is no mad rush. Certainly will not be before 29/03/19 so if we want to revoke article 50 we ought to get cracking. That's not a decision that can be shelved on account of "why bother the end is nigh."
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
You hate Brexit, Roge. That is why everything you read or hear about it makes you cry. You should don your gilet jeaune and go and smash up a bit of your beloved France to make you feel better.
Mr. Cocque, Grayling's inept, but a 3% price rise is not a crisis.
It might not be, if it wasn't for him reeling from the drone fiasco, and on the hook for what appears to be massive corruption over Seaborne Freight.
A more skilled Transport Secretary might be able to ride out the storm, if they weren't already deep in the shit.
Grayling is not that man.
Grayling has shown a truly astonishing lack of talent or ability at everything he has ever done in the public eye. And yet he is still there. He's been in the cabinet since 2012. If there is one thing that he seems to be good at, despite all the disasters in his wake, its surviving.
Perhaps it's just that he gets mistaken for one of the solid marble statues which litter Westminster ?
If only that were true. The really scary thing is that the Tories still think it is a good idea to let him speak to the media.
Fair point. A marble bust would make a far better Transport Secretary.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months
My main frustration with the railways is that the Chase Line still hasn't got its electric trains seven months after they were due to start. Which is doubly frustrating as when they do start we should get direct services to Coventry and London every half an hour plus services to Birmingham every fifteen minutes.
There was a delay in putting up the stanchions. Apparently they discovered a large number of mineworkings that complicated the process.
One can only wonder at the fuckwittery of a plan to electrify a mineral extension across a large coalfield which didn't take into account the probability of mine workings.
Edit - and this of course was the nationalised section screwing up.
TBF unless they did a complete survey of the site they wouldn’t have known of the precise locations of the mine workings
Probability of existence is not sufficient in this case.
Are you saying that you would normally expect a major building project under such circumstances to go ahead without a survey?
They probably did do surveys, but they're immensely difficult on what has been 'industrial' ground for 150 years. What you're looking for might be old bell-pits, only a few metres wide.
In 1993 a TGV derailed at 180MPH when a sinkhole formed under the track. The sinkhole was caused by old World War One trenches that had not been detected when the line was constructed a few years before. Detecting smaller bell pits must be very difficult, especially when you have tons of railway stuff (ballast, cabling etc) above.
As an aside, I recently walked on the moors above Buxton, where the coal board monitors old shafts. It's not the sort of place you expect to find old mine workings.
Was chatting to a friend who worked in coal mining in Nottinghamshire on this very subject on Sunday. He said there were 3,000 known mineworkings of which they didn’t know the whereabouts and an estimated 3,000 workings that weren’t known about.
* Grayling bypassed the public sector tendering process. He gave no justification for doing so.
* He awarded the contract, without tender, to a company that has no track record, and NO ACTUAL BOATS.
* The company is owned by the brother of the single largest Tory donor.
It's not even the corruption aspect of it annoys me, it's that it's so blatant, and so little attempt has been made to hide it, that it's an insult to everyone's intelligence to even be lowering ourselves to Grayling's level.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months
My main frustration with the railways is that the Chase Line still hasn't got its electric trains seven months after they were due to start. Which is doubly frustrating as when they do start we should get direct services to Coventry and London every half an hour plus services to Birmingham every fifteen minutes.
There was a delay in putting up the stanchions. Apparently they discovered a large number of mineworkings that complicated the process.
One can only wonder at the fuckwittery of a plan to electrify a mineral extension across a large coalfield which didn't take into account the probability of mine workings.
Edit - and this of course was the nationalised section screwing up.
TBF unless they did a complete survey of the site they wouldn’t have known of the precise locations of the mine workings
Probability of existence is not sufficient in this case.
Are you saying that you would normally expect a major building project under such circumstances to go ahead without a survey?
No but once the survey had been done it could have impacted timings
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
We'll just have to try to cope Roger. And a happy new year to you too.
A Happy New Year to you too though I can't see much to be happy about. We as a nation are barking mad.
Is that France as a nation or Britain as a nation?
* Grayling bypassed the public sector tendering process. He gave no justification for doing so.
* He awarded the contract, without tender, to a company that has no track record, and NO ACTUAL BOATS.
* The company is owned by the brother of the single largest Tory donor.
It's not even the corruption aspect of it annoys me, it's that it's so blatant, and so little attempt has been made to hide it, that it's an insult to everyone's intelligence to even be lowering ourselves to Grayling's level.
I love how people see corruption when it could equally well be desperation - accepting all offers when the contract was advertised....
After all if you are investigating backup options for something that will never occur why would someone spend time checking the offers that will never be required when you still have the day job to do. You've checked the have a backup plan checkbox and can easily blame others if things went wrong afterwards.
Granted no sensible project manager would just perform a checkbox list but someone with other things to do may well do that knowing they can blame others if the service is really required and its not provided...
* Grayling bypassed the public sector tendering process. He gave no justification for doing so.
* He awarded the contract, without tender, to a company that has no track record, and NO ACTUAL BOATS.
* The company is owned by the brother of the single largest Tory donor.
It's not even the corruption aspect of it annoys me, it's that it's so blatant, and so little attempt has been made to hide it, that it's an insult to everyone's intelligence to even be lowering ourselves to Grayling's level.
1) it was awarded alongside other similar contracts not on its own. Presumably there was a specific process as part of no deal planning
2) that’s the nature of a start up! They started in 2017 with a view to opening their first services in 2019. Presumably pre-Brexit its not economic
3) irrelevant as to the fact. But good political knock about
That’s not evidence of corruption. That’s an accusation without evidence.
You can't by definition put a time on the end of time itself. You have to come up with a different measurement. I'm working on it but am not there yet. What I can say is that there is no mad rush. Certainly will not be before 29/03/19 so if we want to revoke article 50 we ought to get cracking. That's not a decision that can be shelved on account of "why bother the end is nigh."
Look, I am working on the premise that the end of the Brexit debates is in sight. Don't knock it.
You can't by definition put a time on the end of time itself. You have to come up with a different measurement. I'm working on it but am not there yet. What I can say is that there is no mad rush. Certainly will not be before 29/03/19 so if we want to revoke article 50 we ought to get cracking. That's not a decision that can be shelved on account of "why bother the end is nigh."
Look, I am working on the premise that the end of the Brexit debates is in sight. Don't knock it.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months
My main frustration with the railways is that the Chase Line still hasn't got its electric trains seven months after they were due to start. Which is doubly frustrating as when they do start we should get direct services to Coventry and London every half an hour plus services to Birmingham every fifteen minutes.
There was a delay in putting up the stanchions. Apparently they discovered a large number of mineworkings that complicated the process.
One can only wonder at the fuckwittery of a plan to electrify a mineral extension across a large coalfield which didn't take into account the probability of mine workings.
Edit - and this of course was the nationalised section screwing up.
TBF unless they did a complete survey of the site they wouldn’t have known of the precise locations of the mine workings
Probability of existence is not sufficient in this case.
Are you saying that you would normally expect a major building project under such circumstances to go ahead without a survey?
They probably did do surveys, but they're immensely difficult on what has been 'industrial' ground for 150 years. What you're looking for might be old bell-pits, only a few metres wide.
In 1993 a TGV derailed at 180MPH when a sinkhole formed under the track. The sinkhole was caused by old World War One trenches that had not been detected when the line was constructed a few years before. Detecting smaller bell pits must be very difficult, especially when you have tons of railway stuff (ballast, cabling etc) above.
As an aside, I recently walked on the moors above Buxton, where the coal board monitors old shafts. It's not the sort of place you expect to find old mine workings.
They must have done surveys, surely ? I was under the impression that you cannot apply for planning permission on any significant work in a mining area without doing so ?
Totally depressing programme on radio this morning about the new passports without the 'European Union' written on them and how we will now have to go into the much longer queues with 'others' and the difficulty service industries are going to face working in Europe. It might for example be possible to ply your trade in one EU country but require a permit to work in another.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
I’m sure someone on a council estate in Hull is weeping into his bacon butty after contemplating that a riviera based ad exec is struggling to describe his hatred of him. I think it’s described as a first world problem.
Could you explain how Brexit is going to benefit people on council estates in Hull?
Who knows? Probably won't really effect him much- if he is poor now, he'll still be poor after Brexit. He might well be even poorer, but once you're poor, you're poor. What Roger's comment does show is just how unequal our society is. Rog is a rich old fella who flits between the World's major cities, drinking espresso in the south of France and commenting on the majestic Nice sunset. He no more understands why the bloke in Hull decided to roll the dice and vote for Brexit than the bloke in Hull understands him. The bloke in Hull would probably loathe Roger as much as Roger loathes him.
1) it was awarded alongside other similar contracts not on its own. Presumably there was a specific process as part of no deal planning
2) that’s the nature of a start up! They started in 2017 with a view to opening their first services in 2019. Presumably pre-Brexit its not economic
3) irrelevant as to the fact. But good political knock about
That’s not evidence of corruption. That’s an accusation without evidence.
All three amount to pretty solid evidence of corruption. The public sector tendering process exists for a reason. To bypass it without good reason allowing you to funnel millions of public money into a shell company owned by a party donor with zero boats and zero track record is pretty open and shut corruption. It's pretty close to a dictionary definition.
But like I said, it's not Grayling's corruption that annoys me, it's that he's too fucking useless to even attempt to cover it up properly.
Mr. Cocque, the rise is small and most people don't use the railways often. A sizeable minority (saw a poll on Twitter earlier, YouGov, I think) of 39% haven't used them once in the last 12 months.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
A sizeable minority live in areas poorly served by railways.
Rail commuters are a particularly important swing constituency, age wise and also coming from suburban marginal seats. Parties should not neglect them.
I travel by rail a few times per year, most recently to the Isle of Wight for New Year, but we do need to consider rail subsidies and pricing as a part of a larger picture. If we want to reduce road congestion, air pollution, and spread the availibility of work for social inclusion then public transport needs to be reliable and cheap.
The most cost effective public transport are buses. They are more able to reach more communities more quickly. There should be some thought as to how we improve bus interaction with road network. In Bristol close to where I live there is the new Metrobus which has seen additional link roads and bus lanes to improve journey times. I would like to see this extended so that camera controlled routes are bus only access to avoid pinch points (this could be linked to cycle routes too). We should also look at more out of town interchanges. Bus services too often rely on a hub and spoke routes rather than circular routes.
Bus is important. One of the features of austerity in Leics was a reduction in bus services to outlying villages. It is a real problem for both the elderly and also commuters without cars.
The problem I have with trains is that it is fixed high input cost and inflexible. Roads (especially bus lanes) can be used for bikes taxis and cars. With populations becoming older a reliable bus service allows older people access to essential services. I struggle to see the public good in train services except for city based systems like the tube, or the good network of stations around Birmingham. It seems to me that like Remaining in the EU, the majority of those using railways are better off, and more like likely to be journalists or commentators talking about public transport. Living in the West Country I can think of only one person locally who has commuted by train in the last ten years - mostly people use the train to go to London.
BR may have been rubbish, but people got the perception that because it wasn't run by the private sector, there was no deliberate attempt to pick their pockets. It was incompetence rather than malice. That perception is very different now.
Malice is right. A recent example from Scotrail - the 09:15 Perth to Glasgow allows use of off-peak fares. In the December timetable change Scotrail re-timed it to depart at 09:14, which is 1 minute too early for off peak tickets. Which turns a £17 fare to Glasgow into a £30 fare. Or you can wait for the next one - at 10:17. They could have put a fares easement into the system allowing the continued use off off peak tickets, but chose not to.
Without knowing the impact of that 1 minute change on other services you can’t draw that conclusion
And there a difference between revenue maximising and malice
I wasn't suggesting that the 1 minute change wasn't required. The timetable shows a non clock face arrangement on that route - trains run at random minutes around quarter past the hour. But having had a train that departs on the exact point where off peak applies and having seen that change by 1 minute, Scotrail had a choice. Do they apply an easement to the fares, or do they pocket the extra revenue?
You are arguing that a train rescheduled from 9.14 to 9.16 should not benefit from the off-peak fare. How long should this ghost trail of past timetables determine the fares in your view?
Comments
http://trains.im/ppm/LE
Oooft.
No details of the time period for that claim - and no source given.
I'm a regular train and tube user (less so the buses oddly enough). Most of the time, when it works, it's okay.
The tubes are struggling to cope with the volume of passengers. It's 5-deep at East Ham at 7am but you'd better believe there are very few white collar commuters. Most of those waiting are migrant workers, mainly skilled but others just labouring, who travel to construction sites all over London.
As for South Western Railways, on those days when a good service operates, it's fine and I'm lucky as I travel against the flow. However, SWR seems incredibly vulnerable to problems with the infrastructure and of course to those events euphemistically described as "customer incidents" (and I expect we'll see some of those this month). The dislocation seems to take an inordinately long time to clear when something happens and it seems down to train crew being in the wrong place.
Mr. Eagles, got to admire the degree of innumeracy necessary in a Green Party leaflet. Bleats about the 'expensive' franchise system whilst also proposing the taxpayer-funded amount rises from whatever it is now to 100%.
A speed restriction over defective track between Romford and London Liverpool Street is causing disruption to journeys running towards London. Train services may be delayed by up to 25 minutes or cancelled.
According to the company’s social media, the delays are due to a speed restriction over a defective track at Seven Kings station in Ilford, London."
So the nationalised Network Rail's fault ...
And, even for those that don't, the perception of the government constantly letting rail operating companies fail upwards is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with the way public services are run in the UK.
Is a bit cheeky to lump the two together.
*Edited for reasons of resolution keeping.
Not so easy to predict whether Mitt Romney will challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020. I imagine he might if he believes that either (i) he will win, or (ii) if he doesn’t, that it will significantly damage Trump’s chances of a second term. I have Romney (like the Bushes) down as a Republican who would rather a Democrat in the White House than the horror who currently occupies it.
There was a delay in putting up the stanchions. Apparently they discovered a large number of mineworkings that complicated the process.
One can only wonder at the fuckwittery of a plan to electrify a mineral extension across a large coalfield which didn't take into account the probability of mine workings.
Edit - and this of course was the nationalised section screwing up.
They should offer tax breaks to employers for every employee who works from home.
And remember, the efficiency is for the government.
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/11748/rail-passenger-experience-report.pdf
Rail commuters are a particularly important swing constituency, age wise and also coming from suburban marginal seats. Parties should not neglect them.
I travel by rail a few times per year, most recently to the Isle of Wight for New Year, but we do need to consider rail subsidies and pricing as a part of a larger picture. If we want to reduce road congestion, air pollution, and spread the availibility of work for social inclusion then public transport needs to be reliable and cheap.
http://trains.im/ppmhistorical/TP
Though the south services don't look quite as bad as the north ones.
Satisfaction with UK trains compares favourably to the rest of the continent, albeit the trend is negative.
Still, at least Grayling has £2bn to tunnel under Stonehenge.
Someone from Chiltern once told me that they noticed that their Twitter traffic becomes far more angry as passengers closer to London board the trains.
My loathing for Leavers would require the vocabulary of Shakespeare to begin to describe it.
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/merchant/merchant.4.1.html
Train passengers have been asked to behave responsibly after a bra was flushed down a toilet, causing a blockage.
Virgin Trains said that four toilets are being taken out of service every day as a result of people using them incorrectly.
This meant 18,000 lost toilet hours every year with a repair bill of more than £180,000.
The bra is not the only strange item to be found down the toilet on the operator's Pendolino trains - with glasses, wedding rings, nappies and a football scarf also causing plumbing problems.
More than 90% of the blockages were caused by wet wipes - and even those labelled as being flushable were clogging pipes.
https://news.sky.com/story/bra-wedding-rings-and-scarf-among-items-flushed-down-train-toilet-11595389?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
But surely Blair takes a portion of the credit, whilst there are still many people who like Blair and his politics it seems to me that in a way he helped push people back to the left. The Lib Dems (at times), the Greens and especially the SNP all did well by being to the left (if only in appearance sometimes) of Labour. Some of this was after Blair had gone but Labour at that time was still heavily associated with New Labour. Ed had started to move away from that but arguably it was still a strong association and a strong influence on the party.
My understanding is the SNP were majoring on the red Tory jibes a few years ago, the idea that we were all the same was a profitable one for many political parties and was partially to do with Blair.
Just to clarify before anyone has a go at me this isn't my way of saying Blair is a bad person or anything.
http://trains.im/ppmhistorical
I wonder why that was?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46734728
TPE have had an ongoing nightmare, not least having taken over the Hull/Leeds-Piccadilly stopping services. I see 75% of the franchise's entire hourly service schedule on my commute, and 66% (worst month average, I would think) wouldn't surprise me at all.
Seaborne should (assuming the DfT has done their job) be on the hook for delivering on the contract. For a start up operation I’d want a parent company guarantee or a shareholder bond of some kind as well.
Going with bigger businesses when they may not be the best option is one of the worst biases in public sector procurement
Two potential causes:
1) The wind blew one of the trains out of gauge (or a vehicle off a wagon) and into the side of the other one: ISTR fora while that that was assumed to be a causal factor of the Tay Bridge disaster: the wind had blown the train into the bridge structure, helping it fail.
2) A door opened on a wagon: I don't know if they have such doors on curtain-sided wagons, or if there were other types of wagon on the train. For instance: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/547c8ffeed915d4c0d000183/R312009_091119_Eden_Valley_Loop.pdf
I'd go for 1) atm. And am probably wrong.
Probability of existence is not sufficient in this case.
It's almost as if the last government spunked lots of money on welfare to try and buy voters, and the new government just corrected it back before the splurge.
It is easier for many service industries to trade in the US than the EU at the moment. For instance, Hiscox had to create a Jersey based subsidiary because the EU wanted to force it to shut down its LatAm operation
In 1993 a TGV derailed at 180MPH when a sinkhole formed under the track. The sinkhole was caused by old World War One trenches that had not been detected when the line was constructed a few years before. Detecting smaller bell pits must be very difficult, especially when you have tons of railway stuff (ballast, cabling etc) above.
As an aside, I recently walked on the moors above Buxton, where the coal board monitors old shafts. It's not the sort of place you expect to find old mine workings.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/02/most-labour-members-believe-corbyn-should-back-second-brexit-vote
(Edit - 72% want the vote; 88% would vote remain if it happened.)
A marble bust would make a far better Transport Secretary.
Mug's bet.
* He awarded the contract, without tender, to a company that has no track record, and NO ACTUAL BOATS.
* The company is owned by the brother of the single largest Tory donor.
It's not even the corruption aspect of it annoys me, it's that it's so blatant, and so little attempt has been made to hide it, that it's an insult to everyone's intelligence to even be lowering ourselves to Grayling's level.
Or so I have heard.
After all if you are investigating backup options for something that will never occur why would someone spend time checking the offers that will never be required when you still have the day job to do. You've checked the have a backup plan checkbox and can easily blame others if things went wrong afterwards.
Granted no sensible project manager would just perform a checkbox list but someone with other things to do may well do that knowing they can blame others if the service is really required and its not provided...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUz3Z0IZH1U
2) that’s the nature of a start up! They started in 2017 with a view to opening their first services in 2019. Presumably pre-Brexit its not economic
3) irrelevant as to the fact. But good political knock about
That’s not evidence of corruption. That’s an accusation without evidence.
I was under the impression that you cannot apply for planning permission on any significant work in a mining area without doing so ?
What Roger's comment does show is just how unequal our society is. Rog is a rich old fella who flits between the World's major cities, drinking espresso in the south of France and commenting on the majestic Nice sunset. He no more understands why the bloke in Hull decided to roll the dice and vote for Brexit than the bloke in Hull understands him. The bloke in Hull would probably loathe Roger as much as Roger loathes him.
But like I said, it's not Grayling's corruption that annoys me, it's that he's too fucking useless to even attempt to cover it up properly.