Fife Circle - Flying Scotsman - 15/05/16

Is there any actual evidence of this? A lot of nonsense was written about the LNE ban, but when the full details emerged his actions were more than justified.

As for recent events, the industry source doesn't suggest any reticence on his part:

An industry source said: “It was a complete middle-management balls up at Network Rail’s office in Milton Keynes.

“When ScotRail Alliance managing director Phil Verster found out at 5pm on Friday, he personally took charge of the situation.

“He contacted Network Rail chief executive Mark Carne and chairman Sir Peter Hendy, who between them got it sorted.

 

Marcus Robertson of SD has just been on Radio 4 6.00 news,giving Verster and NR Scotland full credit for sorting out the fiasco.

 

Well they can just check twitter, Facebook, local radio and the local paper then, all of those much more available sources seem happy to publish. But of course by all means lets close the smallest stable door available to the smallest number of people, that will fix it.

 

Talk about dog and bone, you just don't give up do you, if you don't like the way the mods run this forum you know where the door is, otherwise play by the rules and just drop the subject.

 

As these details have come to my attention since my original post, I'm happy to retract my speculations in this instance, and give him due credit for flagging the problem up and helping to get the show back on the road. Original post updated.

 

So go and check Facetwitter, RTT et al and stop moaning about it on here. It's not as though you're denied access to other sources.

 

When they give you a moderators arm band you can tell me what to say. Till then you can whine till the cows come home.

 

How many train crashes have occurred under NRs watch then? Charter trains are rightly not the centre of the Universe for NR - as I keep pointing out to those who cannot work it out its keeping regular passengers and freight moving about SAFELY that matters. If NR was in the state of disarray many people mention then this would not be happening day in day out, let alone rebuilding the Sea Wall at Dawlish so effectively from a standing start.

So yes, NRS train planning / gauging department in Milton Keynes has screwed up badly and can legitimately be strongly criticised for doing so. Doing the same to the rest of NR is just NR bashing - a lazy, small minded exercise not worthy of intelligent people, who should be able to understand that just because one division screws up badly it doesn't mean that the rest of the organisation is the same.

 

It could be an indication of endemic incompetence. I can assure you that over the next 12 months other parts of NR are not going to cover themselves in sufficient glory to indicate its not endemic.

 

18, 7 of them NR's responsibility.

 

I'm not having trouble with it, I disagree with it, thats not the same thing. I am complying with it, but I don't have to congratulate you on what I consider is ineffective and counter productive and I also believe is restriction of freedom of information. Its as simple as that.

 

I was under the impression that this thread was about imminent Flying Scotsman charters in Scotland. The responsibility for facilitating those charters depends on the timely provision of routing, pathing & gauging information with which the relevant departments of Network Rail in Milton Keynes are tasked. If failures in this process occurred on an occasional basis I would say fair enough, that's life and move on. When the same failures occur repeatedly, regularly and consistently year in year out something not only needs to change, it is crying out for immediate change in the management responsible.

It seems to me you are the one broadening the argument by making sweeping generalisations about "passengers & freight moving about safely" which are of course like most generalisations impossible to argue against. I have considerable admiration for the hard work & skills of those who rebuilt Dawlish seawall, but I really can't see any reason you should choose to mention that particular project other than to deliberately obfuscate the actual issues supposedly under discussion here.

Finally your totally unnecessary reference to train crashes is the worst kind of emotional smokescreen & entirely unworthy of serious response.

 

Now then. Calm down you lot. On the day before Plymouth play Portsmouth in the playoff second leg, and as a staunch mainline steam fan, I have to say that the withholding of times by NP that are universally available on social medial makes no sense at all. And yet it is the steam enthusiasts who are members of this forum who would never dream of trespass. Yes, on a Saturday night on the day before the run, I have to say that a new approach by National Preservation should be considered. Publish the times. You will not be breaking the law. But you will be providing valuable information to steam fans, those who care about our great hobby. Come on. Do it. You know you can.

 

When we win, Your name will also go on the list

 

The point is this:-

If the WHOLE of NR is incompetent / not fit for purpose - which is what lots of other forum members have been saying (in multiple threads) - the network would be in a perilous state and crashes are a very real possibility when track patrols are not done, points are not gauged, etc

Dawlish was raised because again if NR was the basket case that some on here are only too happy to claim then what was achieved by NR would not have happened.

Yes a management and/or a change in the organisations structure may well be needed with respect to Charter trains / guageing - but the fact remains that in percentage terms they are a tiny number compared to the number of regular passenger and freight trains that run daily. The fact that NR as a whole supports the operation of these services is in stark contrast to accusation that NR is "in chos" / "is a complete shower" / "is incompetent" / "needs getting rid of" / etc.

In short, sorting out the problems with what amounts to a very small part of the company should not be hard but failings within that small part (however high profile they may be) do not give the right to posters in here to insult the company's workforce at large.

 

Win what- the FA Cup?.................

List?............... you mean a piece of bog roll?............

Your post makes no sense whatsoever, other than to rile folks........... the Mods have a tough enough job on here at times without you adding to it - & no I'm not ar... licking - just pointing out fact.

 

Hypocrisy and double standards rule I'm afraid Phil.

 

Until then, let's all move on and try to above repetitive posting.