In the late 1970s the Chrysler Corporation of America was in deep financial trouble. No-one wanted to buy their cars. Lee Iacocca, a former president of Ford Motors who was fired when he fell out with Henry Ford II, was headhunted and persuaded to to take on the presidency of Chrysler to sort out the problems there. It was a smart appointment as Iacocca knew all aspects of the car industry extremely well, having started in engineering but moved over … Continued

Yesterday saw final confirmation of the contents of the High Level Output Specification (HLOS) 2012, the DfT’s outline of work to be carried out on the railways between April 2014 and March 2019 (Control Period 5). The HLOS is not a line-by-line plan. It does not provide in-depth details on everything that Network Rail will carry out between 2014 and 2019. What it does is set out the key objectives and projects which the Government wishes to see completed, and … Continued

Last week saw the first meeting of the London Assembly’s Transport Committee since the elections. In front of the Committee were Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy and Isabel Dedring, Deputy Mayor for Transport. Hendy and Dedring are generally two of the better performers in front of the Committee, giving full, well informed, answers with (relatively) little evasion. Last week’s meeting was no exception, and consequently the session provided some interesting insight into the current thinking within TfL on several key topics. … Continued

One of the curious legacies of the post-Beeching railway era is the concept of the Parliamentary Train. Essentially, due to the mandatory consultation process that must now take place before a section of line is closed to scheduled passenger service, it is often easier (and cheaper) to run one train a week over sections of line that are no longer used rather than go through the lengthy process necessary to officially close them. One such Parliamentary Train currently runs between … Continued

The more we looked at rail freight in London the more we realised the significant challenges it poses, including to TfL’s aspirations for the Overground and its ‘strategic interchanges’. As the network in London reaches capacity it quickly becomes clear that choices will need to be made between providing paths for freight vs passenger, and that might actually require reductions in passenger services. London’s growth has focused a burgeoning travel demand on same city core as in the 1860s, so … Continued

In our previous posts on the shape of London’s rail network, we looked at how our infrastructure legacy gives rise to the pattern of services which concentrates demand onto the city core and its ring of termini. While London’s population and travel to work area have grown enormously, the core has largely remained the same as it was in the 1860s. The challenge is to reshape the network to expand the city core and break free from this legacy. New … Continued

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond revealed details today of a number of rail projects for which news had been missing since the Spending Review. Most notable in the announcement was confirmation that Thameslink will indeed be completed in full as currently scoped, albeit with a slightly elongated delivery plan. The project will now be scheduled to complete in 2019 (by which point, cynics may point out, the originally titled “Thameslink 2000″ project will only be a mere 19 years late). In … Continued

All has been (unsurprisingly) quiet on the Croxley front since the then newly appointed Coalition Government first announced its Spending Review. The scheme, which would see the Metropolitan Line extended to Watford Junction via Croxley, was one of those which featured in the EERA’s funding recommendations earlier this year, recommendations that the the DfT had got as far as approving before the Spending Review freeze kicked in. Since then, the Croxley Rail Link has been most noticable by its further … Continued