Tuesday Variety (inc Kiev Kyiv Київ)

Really Big Money 

THE GO-AHEAD GROUP PLC

("GO-AHEAD" OR "THE GROUP")

Reconnecting maybe, but not getting the sums right.

Department for Transport announces financial penalty in relation to London & South Eastern Railway Ltd

Go-Ahead announces that the Department for Transport (DfT) has stated that it has issued a £23.5m penalty notice to London & Southeastern Railway Ltd (LSER) in respect of good faith contraventions of LSER franchise agreements.

In its results for the year ended 3 July 2021, published on 24 February 2022, the Group recognised a provision of £30.0m in its accounts in respect of a potential financial penalty from the DfT in relation to LSER.

The amount payable to the DfT is expected to be settled from LSER's restricted cash balance.

That's £50.5 million gone phut! Whoops!

Even Bigger Money

P&O Ferries' annual losses of 100 million pounds were covered by its owners, the Dubai ports operator DP World. The staff cuts, representing more than a quarter of its workforce, disrupted services even before a formal announcement was made. The move caught the union and the government by surprise.

This was a bitter comment posted on a twitter account.

Much Less Money

No surprise that Hulleys are in need of cash. Covid passenger number decline should have been covered by government subsidies, so this would appear to be an attempt to recover from some of the more "courageous" service development over the last two years.

fbb's correspondent thinks that £200k is about two weeks revenue (that's revenue in the "good times") for Hulleys.

So not much really!

No one seems to know why Hulleys has been granted this extra pocket money by the Northern Powerhouse - which doesn't have a lot to lend to anyone.

Hulleys must be "flavour of the month".

fbb is sure that First South Yorkshire (as in "we haven't made a profit since 2010") could do with a much bigger nugget of real money from the same fund.

Hardly Any Money At All

Yesterday, it became necessary to replace not one but two light bulbs in the lounge/dining room/workshop at fbb mansions. The above product (Tesco, £3 each) seemed OK as it offered 15 years illumination but at a rather small 2.7 hours a day. The room concerned faces north and fbb would not expect such a performance as often the lights need to be on all day!

Into he standard bayonet sockets they went and shone brightly and steadily ...

... then after about ten minutes, IT happened. The light started flashing alarmingly and wouldn't stop until it was switched off. A second bulb produced the same effect. Now the fbbs do have a dimmer switch, which has successfully powered a similar bulb until it died. It wouldn't dim, but the bulb shone normally.

In the present case the dimmer was turned full-on!

When fbb tried the flasher in a light without dimmer switch, it worked fine.

Mrs fbb has now ordered some similar bulbs, but advertised as 'dimmable", AT OVER TWICE THE PRICE!

It was never as bad as this before we all became "energy efficient" and financially inefficient. BRING BACK PROPER BULBS!

And Back To The Hidden Kyiv Station

The only access is by footpath then via the footbridge visible at the bottom of the above picture.

Access from any other transport mode is less than straightforward.

But the service has its own logo ...

... and is explained, just about, by a Wikipedia article.

The Kyiv Urban Electric Train (Ukrainian: Київська міська електричка, romanized: Kyivska miska elektrychka) is a "circular" urban rail transit passenger service in Kyiv, Ukraine. The service is operated by Ukrainian Railways and Kyivpastrans (City of Kyiv trandport authority). The project uses long-existing railroad ring in the city for circulation of electric multiple unit trains.

Working since September 2009 Kyiv Urban Electric Train is the first instance of a combined municipal railway service and a national passenger rail route in Ukraine, and arguably in the former Soviet Union as a whole.

The ring was fully completed on 4 October 2011, the full length of lines is 50.8 km with 15 stations. Opening hours are from 5:48 until 21:37 with a time between trains of between 10 and 30 minutes. 12 trains operate on the line; the fastest time to complete a loop is 1 hour and 25 minutes.

fbb was able to find a crude diagram of this almost independent line.

The route is easier to follow without the purple overlay. (click on the map below for an enlargement).

As can be seen above, the line is not a true circular but involves a terminus stub at ...

... Darnytsia as shown below.

fbb will explore further this not-quite-circular line in due course.

 Next Variety blog (inc Kiev Kyiv Київ) : Wed 23 Mar