Saturday Variety

 The Williams Report

You have to feel a bit sorry for Keith Williams.

Williams spent his early career with Boots, Apple Inc., and Reckitt and Colman.

In 1998, Williams left Reckitt and Colman, and joined British Airways, rising to CEO in 2011, and then chairman. In April 2016, he was succeeded by Álex Cruz as chairman.

Williams has been a non-executive director and deputy chairman of John Lewis, and a non-executive director of Aviva until May 2019.

Williams has been the chairman of Halfords since July 2018.

In May 2019, Williams, then deputy chairman, and a board member since January 2018, succeeded Les Owen as chairman of Royal Mail.

In May 2020, Rico Back resigned as CEO of Royal Mail with immediate effect, and Williams, the chairman, replaced him as executive chairman.

Williams is the independent chair of the Government-supported Rail Review.

Busy chap! How has he found the time to prepare and write his report? Well ... he is only its "Chairman" so fbb guesses that most of the real work has been done by faceless minions at the DaFT.

Oh dear.

IF his report is fully implemented (a big IF) and IF it actually works out in practice (another big IF) and IF the Government lets him and the new organisation do what is necessary (even bigger IF), young Keith will go down in history as the man who save Britain's railways.

IF it all goes belly-up (ALMOST a certainty given the vacillations of the political scene) then he will join the ranks of the industry's honourable failures.

The report goes out as the "Keith and Grant Show" with their facsimile signatures at the foot of the introduction.

There is no real call to feel sorry for Grant Shapps as he is unlikely to be Minister of Transport for much longer - he has already outlasted several holders of that poisoned chalice. It would be about normality to "move him on" before anything actually happens which, we are told, will be two years away.

Most of what you have read is based on Summaries of the report and press releases. 

fbb will attempt to read the whole 112 pages of the report over the weekend and offer his readers a considered response in Monday's blog.

Bet you are all very excited.

Don't be - there is very little to get excited about.

And now, much more serious matters ...

Fife Heritage

The Kingdom of Fife has always laid claim to a certain individuality. From a bus point of view it was served by W. Alexander (Fife) Ltd, part of the Scottish Bus Group:-

Central S.M.T. Company Ltd

Highland Omnibuses Ltd

Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

W. Alexander & Sons (Fife) Ltd

W. Alexander & Sons (Midland) Ltd

W. Alexander & Sons (Northern) Ltd

Western S.M.T. Company Ltd

buses operated by David MacBrayne (from 1970)

From 1985 in preparation for deregulation

Central Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Clydeside Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Eastern Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Fife Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Highland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Kelvin Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Lowland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Midland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Northern Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Scottish Citylink Coaches Ltd

Strathtay Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Western Scottish Omnibuses Ltd

Fife buses were red, and a brighter red than Central or Western; but despite their attractive livery, the company seems to have attracted far less attention than the other Scottish bus businesses. Of course, Scotland was well carved up by the two local giants, First in Aberdeen and Stagecoach in Perth, so the Kingdom of Fife becomes the Kingdom of Brian!

But the red buses were smart and had a beautiful script fleetname to add to their originality.

They looked even better with more cream!

It is good that Stagecoach has recently unveiled one of its vehicles in full Fife livery (sadly with only one cream stripe!).

The bus has previous worn a Megarider promotional livery ...

... as well as standard Stagecoach colours.

Hopefully that means the bus will be spared the indignity of the latest wishy-washy "local" colours!

Talking Of Logos

AFFIVAL is actually Arrival (NOT Arriva)! It is selling technology, although in common with its logo the web site does not seem to want to tell us what sort of technology is in their catalogue. It is offering an AFFIVAL van ...

... and an AFFIVAL bus.

Roger French and Ray Stenning (spot the subdued garb) ...

... are amongst the industry glitterati recently invited to a factory visit. Maybe they now know what it is all about.

fbb thinks it is something to do with electricity.

First, The Bad News

After a Hendersons Relish van, a Yorkshire Pudding salt wagon and an Uncle Joes Mint Ball tanker wagon, Rails of Sheffield have produced an Englands Glory van.

The Gloucester factory is now a multi occupancy trading estate ...

A few years back there was a local campaign to re-instate the illuminated sign.

fbb cannot discover whether the campaign for re-instatement was successful!

And the bad new?

£18 quid's worth of completely fake and utterly fabricated private owner wagon has sold out! So you are too late!

But, Tentatively, Some Good News

From  Northampton comes this worrying and extremely serious news item.

But despite correspondent Alan's flakeist withdrawals symptoms, fbb can report that boxes of the shortaged short flake are still on sale from a well known South American River.

That's a smidgen short of 16p a mini-flake.

Model Railway Progress

NONE!

Due to additional domestic duties and significant daytime precipitation, fbb has been unable to progress his on-going development of Peterville Quarry Railway. But Peco model shop (picture lower left; entrance to the right of the door labelled "Pecorama") is open ...

... so supplies are readily available without being stung for postage.

Opinions Are Being Expressed

Transport for the North lacks powers and pennies, so maybe they feel that being nice about the Report will stand them in good stead for disbursement of funds. See also Andy Burnham and Transport for Manchester!

 Next Variety blog : Sunday 23rd May 

For The Record

Tomorrow has various names. Traditionally in the UK it was/is known as Whit Sunday, possibly derived from the wearing of shiny white clothes to mark the onset of wearing one's posh summer attire.

Alternatively it is known as Pentecost Sunday - "pentecost" = fifty days.

In Judaism the Festival of Weeks (Hebrew: שבועות‎ Shavuot) is a harvest festival that is celebrated seven weeks and one day after the first day of Passover. The Festival of Weeks is also called the feast of Harvest  and the day of first fruits in Numbers 28:26. In Exodus 34:22 it is called the "first fruits of the wheat harvest."

Originally the First Fruits festival celebrated the beginning phase of Harvest and recognised God's gift of sustenance after the rigours of winter.

Although the official late May public (formerly bank) holiday is divorced from Whitsun, the ideas behind the Christian festival provide an interesting mix of theological and social images.

White purity and the gift of "fruits" are a vital part of Pentecost.