Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads. This week’s lineup:
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- • Thameslink’s Canal Tunnels open (A London Blog)
- • Sir Peter Hendy’s 2018 George Bradshaw Address (Rail Delivery Group)
- • Tube fashion (WaveyGarms)
- • London Tramways document display – 6 March (London Metropolitan Archives)
- • Boston’s best bet modernise its commuter rail (StreetsBlog)
- • DC’s long disused Dupont Circle streetcar tunnel being reused (Smithsonian)
- • Building LA’s Crenshaw light rail line (Engineering News-Record)
- • Remnants of US Transcontinental Airway System (99% Invisible)
- • Karachi’s abandonned Circular Railway in photos (BlouinArtInfo)
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The Peter Hendy address is interesting in terms of the “importation” of practice from TfL / London Underground into the Network Rail way of doing things now and into the future. Harks back to “Lord Dawlish’s” remarks about the destruction of the “corporate centre” as part of rail privatisation and how LT (later TfL) were the only party doing any longer term strategic planning / thinking. Seems that now Network Rail find they need that “corporate brain” to do things properly. How long before Mr Grayling decides to stop such “deviant practice” from taking hold to avoid challenge to the DfT “brain”?
WW
Given Thymallus’ universal record for the anti-Midas touch, I would suspect not very long (!)
Maybe for “corporate brain” we could read “System Operator”? Reading the Hendy speech prompted me to read through the 2019-24 Business Plan documents linked from here: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/publications-resources/strategicbusinessplan/ and also some of the other NR executive speeches listed here: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/publications-resources/speeches/ and it seems pretty clear to me that Hendy, Carne et al are making a concerted effort to position NR as the strategic epicentre for UK rail transport – no bad thing given some of the alternatives and certainly good if Hendy can broker a consensus with his TfL ex-colleagues.
@ B&T – no issue with the concept but your term of “strategic epicentre for UK rail transport” would start giving the DfT jitters as it looks like another power base / source of independent thought and we can’t be having that now can we? It’s bad enough having a Mayor of London coming along with high performing concession contracts, fares freezes and offers to take over Southern Rail. 😉
After discounting the idea of locking a bound & gagged Failing in a disused GMH basement there are probably quite a few people at DfT who welcome ANY type of rational thought, independent or otherwise, to counter his doctrinaire rantings…
Re B&T,
Only discounted because there is no “disused” GMH basement it is all very much used, the cafe, large meeting rooms and cycle changing facilities /parking are all down there. (half of GMH was sold off for flats nearly a decade ago). However I’m sure the table tennis storage cupboard could have been re-purposed if the building maintenance wasn’t outsourced… 😉
DfT (or rather Wilkinson + Kelly?) have now recognised that the NR system operator is a very good way of preventing many franchising F-ups as they spot things that DfT and the consultancy helping DfT on a particular bid miss. See another set of my recent comments for upcoming franchise wrecks (One bid winner “forgetting” about freight paths for example)
Oh dear – so the old Safe Room designed by Millbank Technical Services for the “re-education” of rebellious SoSs in the basement of the old Marsham St. Towers wasn’t duplicated after demolition. Sad…
The Peter Hendy address paraphrased:
‘You are the Rail Delivery Group, “set up in 2011 to provide leadership to the rail network”. Since you have totally failed to do this we at Network Rail will be providing the leadership instead.
You think the Tube isn’t a proper railway but everything you on the proper railway find most difficult – implementing DOO, electronic ticketing, digital signalling, customer-centred performance – we did decades ago.
Oh, and you are all like a Ladybird book from 1972 – you spend all your time talking about how things work, not about what they do.*’
* Sounds like most railway forums really.
Re Ian J,
RDG was set up shortly after DfT’s Tea, Coffee and Biscuits ban for meetings scheduled to last less than 4 hours so has served it purposed admirably!!! It was designed as a talking shop as DfT could no longer facilitate things easily. (DfT meetings delayed while everyone in the meeting stocked up on coffee at the 2 nearby Prets…)
It is also excellent at issuing press releases with no substance!
Re B&T,
On reflection I’m sure Ashdown House could provide suitable facilities, the only issue is luring him to DfT Hastings outpost.
@WW: DfT does look rather like something dreamed up in a centralised command economy. Something I thought franchising was designed to prevent? 😉
@ Ian J / Ngh – well that little translation of the Hendy speech and subsequent RDG commentary made me chuckle. Nice to see that TfL is not the only place where a hot drinks and biccies ban resulted in meetings being distracted by caffeine ordering from external outlets.
Related to Thameslink and Canal Tunnels. Some Thameslink brand trains now call at New Cross Gate. I was on one today, a 12 carriage variant that used selective door opening. What took me by surprise was the complete absence of announcements about short platform and selective door opening. Is this a deliberate omission or just a fault with the individual train I was on?
@Islanddweller – As a (fairly) regular user of the Horsham service between East Croydon and New Cross Gate I haven’t heard any announcement on any of the Thameslink full length units. But as my understanding is that from the May timetable they’ll be omitting the New Cross Gate stop (as they currently do during the peaks) perhaps they couldn’t be bothered programming an announcement for 2-3 months.
@Vince. Interesting observation. I was naively assuming that with these shiny new trains, it would have taken a nano second to programme a suitable announcement.