Monday 22 November 2010

Thursday now the new Tuesday - Official

Exciting news for those who are completely confused about when Petrol-head will announce the death of the UK's last remaining train manufacturing plant.

This from today's Lobby briefing...

Thursday
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has an announcement on the rail network.

Exciting news indeed!

Meanwhile, it appears that the spinners at Hitachi have been forced to 'right-size' their grandiose claims about the number of jobs that the IEP assembly facility will create at Newton Aycliffe.


This from the Northern Echo on the 23rd July quoting the president of Hitachi...

Hiroaki Nakanishi has lobbied Transport Secretary Phillip Hammond to secure the go-ahead for a factory in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, creating up to 800 jobs directly and about 7,000 more in the supply chain.

Eye readers are invited to compare the figure of 'up to 800 jobs' with the revised figure given by the area's own MP in the Newcastle Journal last Friday...

Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson, in whose constituency the initial 200 jobs would be based, said thousands of supply sector jobs were dependant on the decision and pleaded for an early announcement.

Eye suspects that Nakanishi San's original numbers were lost in translation.

No matter.

There will be no risk of similar confusion when Hitachi's latest proposals are compared against the DfT's original OJEU and ITT requirements for the IEP...

Railway sculptures - Poulton le Fylde

An occasional series celebrating the rich diversity of artistic forms that Network Rail P-way teams have left in strategic locations to delight the passenger...


Eye suspect that this was an early candidate for world famous contemporary arts award, the Turn-off Prize.