• About

Paul Bigland

~ Blogging on transport, travel & whatever takes my fancy.

Paul Bigland

Category Archives: Crap journalism

Meet the new media (same as the old media)…

30 Friday Jul 2021

Posted by Paul Bigland in Byline media, Crap journalism, Hs2, Railways

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bylinemedia, crap journalism, Hs2, Railways

In the past few years there’s been widespread dissatisfaction with ‘traditional’ media outlets, both print and broadcast. It’s not an unreasonable feeling as most newspapers have been bought up or are owned by media barons who use them to push their own particular world view to further their own interests. The Broadcast media such as the BBC have also come under fire as their obsession with ‘balance’ has led then to give undue weight and prominence to people and groups selling snake-oil on subjects like the economy, politics or climate change. Then there’s the mystery of why right-wingers like Nigel Farage always featured on programmes like Question Time, despite him failing multiple times to ever get elected…

This dissatisfaction has fuelled the rise of the ‘alternative’ media. Sadly, much of that has been just as bad as many of the outlets are exactly the same as the print media. They’re exist solely to push one political view or ideology and damn the truth! Their function is to reinforce peoples prejudices and tell them what they want to hear. It’s not just the right-wing either, you have several left-wing outlets too. As always, the first casualty is the truth.

So, it felt like a new hope when Byline Media was established by one Peter Jukes back in 2019. The aims were laudable. It was to be impartial, report the truth and be a platform where ‘facts matter’. You can read more about its aims here in its manifesto.

Sadly, the reality has proved to be a real disappointment as the project has some major flaws. Here’s one. In it’s manifesto it says “Byline is a platform, not a paper. This means we don’t edit our journalists”. The reality is – this leaves them free to publish some complete crap! They also claim “Though we accept absolute truth isn’t reachable, aspiring to accuracy is still important” Really? How, when they don’t ‘edit’ their Journalists, or check their facts – or correct their errors? This smells like a cop-out. Then there’s the fact that Jukes himself isn’t averse to leaping in on social media to throw in fact-free assertions backed-up by nothing other than his own prejudices. Jukes talks of “holding power to account”, but who holds Byline to account?

Let me give you some examples. Regular readers will know I often write about railways and HS2, the new High-Speed railway in particular. Because of the fact I’ve been doing this for nearly a decade I’ve come to know a lot about it, which means I can tell fact from fiction – and there’s plenty of the latter around masquerading as the former!

Sadly, Byline have chosen to publish an awful lot of the latter too, which is ironic as in April they celebrated their second birthday and tweeted this.

Two years of ‘exposing lies’ eh? But what about the ones you’ve helped spread?

Here’s a recent article on HS2 entitled “the runaway train”. It was written by Sam Bright and billed as an ‘exclusive’.

It hits the buffers straight away as there’s nothing ‘exclusive’ about it. It’s a rehash of old accusations made by two ex HS2Ltd employees (Andrew Bruce and Doug Thornton) dating from the mid 2010s and investigated by the Public Accounts Committee in 2018, which dismissed the claims. Despite Bright’s claims, there’s no new evidence in the article. Bright does say,

“Byline Times has seen a signed affidavit given by Bruce in August 2019, detailing his experiences working for HS2 Limited – the Government-funded private company that is tasked with delivering the railway.”

So, what’s the new revelations in this affidavit then? Bruce doesn’t say, probably because there aren’t any. But we do get this tidbit.

““I was advised that I had not passed my probation due to poor performance and that I was to leave the building immediately,” he states in the affidavit”

So, Bruce wasn’t ‘sacked’, he simply didn’t pass his probationary period. Hardly unique…

So, no new revelations in the article, but plenty of muddled conspiracies and factual errors – like this.

“The phase one HS2 hybrid bill was introduced for its third reading in the House of Commons in March 2016 and Royal Assent was granted in February 2017.”

“Nine months before the hybrid bill was put before Parliament for Royal Assent, HS2 – and therefore one would reasonably assume the DfT – knew the true cost, but I was fired and the true cost was concealed until after Royal Assent was granted”…

Eh? Royal Assent is a formality. The Queen cannot refuse it. Third reading of a Hybrid Bill is also a formality that just rubber stamps any amendments made during the petitioning process. The bill is regarded as being ‘established’ (ie passed) after its 2nd reading, which was in April 2014. So any extra costs there were on land purchases are a total Red Herring. The Hybrid Bill petitioning Ctte added 100s of millions to the cost of HS2 by agreeing to extra tunnels but that wasn’t an issue either as Parliament had agreed to build HS2 back in April 2014. It doesn’t then go back and say ‘hang on a minute – recall Parliament – we want to scrap this now the costs have changed’ so the idea that anyone was fired to conceal something that would have no impact is just stuff and nonsense. Oh, there’s also the small matter that the property costs of HS2 were reported every year (there’s now a report to Parliament every six months).

It’s worth noting that the land and properties acquired for the construction and operation of HS2 are purchased by HS2 Ltd as agent for the Secretary of State and are recognised as assets in the DfT’s financial statements. They are not included in HS2 Ltd’s financial statements. The DfT accounts are published annually and presented to Parliament annually, so any HS2 property figures would be known annually. They’re also scrutinized by the National Audit Office (NAO). Here’s their latest look at HS2. The idea that anything was being ‘hidden’ when HS2 has so much public and Parliamentary scrutiny is far-fetched to say the least – and it was dismissed by the NAO in this report in 2018 which specifically deals with the ‘whistleblowers’ claims.

“The National Audit Office received correspondence concerned about HS2 Ltd’s land and property programme. They raised concerns with us that:

• HS2 Ltd had understated the property cost estimate, including in information provided to Parliament with deposit of the hybrid Bill for Phase One”

Their conclusion?

No ‘conspiracy, no smoking gun – and still within budget…

So, what’s the point of Byline’s ‘exclusive’ other than to rehash old ground? There’s nothing new at all. It’s throwing old mud around in the hope it’ll stick second time around. The only interesting revelation is that Thornton (one of the two embittered ex-employees) is now driving delivery vans for Tesco!

But then Bright really goes off the factual rails, writing that

“A 2019 review of HS2 by the project’s former chairman Douglas Oakervee suggested that the total cost could amount to £106.6 billion – while others have claimed that it could cost as much as £170 billion.”

Eh? Oakervee never said any such thing! The only time the £106.6bn number was mentioned was to specifically REJECT it – as anyone who’s actually read the Oakervee review would know. Here it is in in black and white on page on page 60.

How Bright’s managed to claim this says “Oakervee suggested that the total cost could amount to £106.6 billion” is a mystery. Here’s what Oakervee actually says about the cost of HS2.

£62-69bn. Oakervee notes that 2015 prices are ‘problematic’ so on page 56 of the report he updates them to 2019 prices.

So, £62-69bn becomes £80.7 – £87.7bn. Not £106.6bn as Bright inexplicably claims! But where did that other £170 billion figure come from Bright mentions? It’s made up by a chap called Michael Byng. No-one but Byng recognises it, but it’s a nice big scary number, so Bright gives it an airing.

When Byline published this and Jukes promoted it on Twitter, the reaction from HS2 supporters was ‘oh, no – not that old rubbish again’? Jukes took a bit of a hammering. Instead of looking at the (valid criticisms) he doubled down with this tweet which put the made-up number on a par with official figures.

Doubling down again in the face of further criticism, he came out with this Linking HS2 to Tory cronyism on the basis of absolutely no evidence whatsoever – and yet again giving credibility to inaccurate and made up numbers!

Peter clearly forgets he’s meant to be ‘exposing lies’ not telling porkies…

A friend described Byline to me as “skwawkbox for centrist dads’. I’m beginning to see what he meant.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, one of Byline’s regional branches (East Anglia Bylines) also launched a hatchet job on HS2, and this one’s a doozy! Take a look at this!

No wonder the author (Wheeltapper) wanted to be anonymous! It’s utter rubbish. How about this ‘revelation’?

“So, the reason the NtP initially referred only to Phase 1 is that Phase 1 isn’t going to integrate: it’s all completely new.  Larger, faster trains will need different track; they are being purchased from the continent, where the track gauge is wider, necessary to achieve the higher speeds.”

Wait? What? HS2 is going to be built to a different gauge? The ‘continent’ doesn’t use standard gauge? That’ll come as a shocker to Eurostar then, they’ve been running through services using standard gauge trains between London, Paris and Brussels since 1994 and now run to Amsterdam too – not to mention across France with ski specials and to Eurodisney!

The whole article is appalling there’s so many howlers and untruths I could spend a whole day blogging factual corrections but can’t be bothered. Any real media outlet with any semblance of quality control or standards would have binned this rubbish straight away. I tweeted East Anglia Bylines and pointed out some of these howlers but never received as much as an acknowledgement. This load of crap is still on their website (see update). But remember, according to Jukes and Byline “the truth matters”. Except when it doesn’t, obviously.

It’s a huge shame to see that Byline – despite all their claims – are just as bad as the media outlets that pander to people’s prejudices, because I have to ask, if they’re printing dishonest stuff like this I’ve spotted because I know about the subject, what else are they putting out? I’m not the only once to spot this conundrum.

Other well-known bloggers have spotted the problems too…

So, remember as a well-known TV series once said, “the truth is out there” – just don’t fall into the trap of thinking it’ll fall into your lap on Byline media…

UPDATE.

I’ve been told via back-channels that the awful East Anglia Bylines piece has been ‘pulled for review and correction’. Personally, I think the best thing they could do with it is file it in the bin, but we shall see….

UPDATE No2.

Sadly, Byline have continued their trend of publishing fact-free, poorly researched and just plain wrong articles about HS2 and Peter Jukes continues to get very sniffy when people then criticize him for it – even when those people are Byline subscribers. The latest daft piece is this, titled “HS2 doesn’t know how many Oak trees it’s destroyed”. No-one seemed to have had the gumption to ask “well, why would it? Why does it need to know every single tree by species, what’s the point”? HS2 has responded with how many hectares of oerdinary and also ancient woodland have been felled, but count every single tree? Oh, please!

The article contains another classic snide remark that’s rather backfired. The author, one Jake Tacchi sniffily says

“It also involves the construction of four new stations, including the ill-thought-out name of Old Oak Common in West London”. The lad is clearly unaware that HS2 didn’t invent the name Old Oak Common, it’s a long established name of an area of London that’s been in use for centuries. You might as well complain there’s no Pachyderms or Battlements to be found at the Elephant and Castle!

The article trots out all the old trite claims about HS2 that feature on everyone’s Bingo Cards when it comes to canards. The Woodland Trusts supposed 108 woodlands ‘destroyed’? Check. HS2 not ‘carbon neutral for 120 years’? Tick. Then there’s another gem. Apparently, “Despite the felling of such ancient trees, the project first being proposed in 2009, and costs for the railway soaring, not a single mile of track has yet to be laid”. Really? Has no-one told this young man that HS2 only got Notice To Proceed in early 2020 and that before you lay any tracks you need to build tunnels, bridges, cuttings and embankments first (which the contractors, now mobilising, are doing at a rate of knots? Not exactly what you’d call a killer argument, is it? Here’s the reality this young man doesn’t seem to have noticed…

Oi! Get a shift on will yer? I know you’ve only been boring these 10 mile long tunnels for a couple of months and it’ll take 2 years to do it, but Jake Tacchi’s moaning that you’ve not laid any tracks yet…

My criticisms of Bylines poor standards of Journalism and complete absence of fact-checking have met with this reaction. Frank and fearless journalism, or touchy and unable to accept and respond to criticism? You decide….

Needless to say, this silly act of pique won’t stop me critiquing any other nonsense Byline publish about HS2 as they can’t block me from their website! It’s entirely counter-productive and hasn’t done their reputation any favors either all it shows it they’re rather thin-skinned when it comes to valid criticisms of their content.

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

An example of how local media (& the anti Hs2 mob) will fall for anything…

06 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Crap journalism, Hs2, Richard Wellings, Rugby Observer

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

crap journalism, Hs2, Richard Wellings, Rugby Observer

Yesterday’s Rugby Observer carried a piece written by Lawrence Baker, proclaiming “HS2 opponents call for reopening of Rugby’s Great Central Railway“. The origins of the story came from a ‘press release’ that was alleged to come from the English Regional Transport Association. Their press release bears no address, no website details, no charity or other registration number – just a couple of telephone numbers and a picture of their ‘spokesman’ – a chap called Richard Pill.

This is what the ERTA had to say…

erta

The ERTA has decided? Wow! So who is this august body that their deliberations should carry any weight & make it into print?

They don’t exist.

Lawrence Baker has made the fundamental mistake of not bothering to do the slightest bit of fact checking. No alarm bells rang when all the ‘news release’ carried was a couple of phone numbers & no address. He didn’t even bother running Richard Pill’s name through Google. If he had done, he’d have saved himself & his paper a lot of embarrassment.

Why?

Here’s Richard Pill’s LinkedIn page;

Pill

And here’s the picture of Pill from the ‘press release’

pill 2

The Rugby Observer have been conned by a part time gardener.

Mind you, it’s not just the Rugby Observer who are so easily fooled by anti Hs2 rubbish. When he’s not making his own rubbish up, Richard Wellings from the IEA falls for stuff hook, line and sinker too!

wellings again

That said, Wellings is well known for falling for anything. He’s recently been caught out retweeting a load of cobblers from an anonymous anti Hs2 blogger who calls himself ‘Beleben’. This individual claimed half the WCML freight paths go unused. When presented with the real time data that proved otherwise Wellings ducked the issue & still does to this day!

What this says about the anti Hs2 camps intellectual & critical prowess is up to the readers to decide.

More crap reporting, this time from the Independent

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Crap journalism, Hs2, The Independent

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

crap journalism, Hs2, The Independent

Is it any wonder the world of journalism is held in such low esteem nowadays? Take this example from today’s Independent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/church-to-oppose-hs2-rail-link–because-it-would-desecrate-graveyards-9468659.html

The Church of England is to oppose Hs2? Really?

No, of course not -as the C of E made clear to the Indy – who ignored them & fabricated a headline anyway in order to cobble together up some cheap knocking copy.

Here’s what the C of E really said.

Indy

Is that so difficult to understand by the Indy’s wordsmiths that they manage to translate it into the exact opposite? No, of course not. It simply shows the declining standards of that newspaper & why hardly anyone outside the M25 reads it nowadays. The story isn’t even new but presumably the Indy wanted to jump on the bandwagon the Express started with their non-story about Brunel being dug up to make way for Hs2

I don’t know why the Indy doesn’t bother to change the colour of its masthead to red & join the other downmarket rags it obviously aspires to be nowadays.

Classic media hysteria & Stop Hs2 deceit from the Sunday Express.

26 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Crap journalism, Hs2, Joe Rukin, StopHs2, The Daily Express

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

crap journalism, Hs2, Joe Rukin, StopHs2, The Daily Express

The Sunday Express, a newspaper well known for hysteria & inaccuracy has published this piece on Hs2.

“Isambard Kingdom Brunel may be the father of British railways but it might not save his grave from being dug up to make way for HS2″

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/593825/HS2-given-permission-exhume-the-dead-build-new-train-line

And the evidence for this is?

There’s none, it’s complete bullshit, as anyone who actually bothers to read the article & use their brain will realise – which probably rules out a goodly percentage of Express readers.

Hs2 spokeswoman Katherine Button explained the truth: “We have made one precautionary application as we are doing some ground investigation in Kensal Green Cemetery in London. The cemetery manager does not believe the site we have chosen contains burials but we have agreed a specific careful excavation process to prevent the unexpected disturbance of human remains.”

So, not only is Brunel not in danger of being being dug up, no-one else is either.

Tucked away in the article is this rather salient fact. ‘The tunnel under Kensal Green Cemetery is expected to be between 80ft and 115ft down’ All Hs2 Ltd are doing is drilling a test bore to assess the ground they’ll be tunneling through, nothing more.

Not that you’d get StopHs2s resident ranter Joe Rukin to admit the truth. Given the opportunity to comment he comes out with his usual deceitful rubbish, claiming that;

““It is not a great surprise they haven’t told anyone about this. The whole project has been a catalogue of mistakes.

“You don’t make an application like that if you don’t need to do it. It is clear they have strong suspicions that they will need to exhume bodies.”

Not told anyone? Hs2 Ltd have gone through a formal application process & got all the relevant permissions from the authorities concerned, they’re not exactly turning up in the dead of night like some modern Burke & Hare! There’s also the small matter that all this has come to light beforehand precisely because of that formal process. Needless to say, in a further effort to scaremonger, Rukin also completely ignores the fact that if you’re tunnelling 80ft underground, there’s no need to dig anyone up.

Clearly, Rukin & the Express are well suited. Both love scaremongering & have a cavalier attitude to facts. Perhaps Rukin can get a job with the Express when Joe Elliott finally sees sense & pulls the plug on funding Stophs2.

Recent Posts

  • Rolling blog. Roving again…
  • 20th March picture of the day…
  • 19th March picture(s) of the day…
  • 18th March picture of the day…
  • 17th March picture of the day…

Recent Comments

Paul Bigland on More right-wing tosh about Hig…
Justin McAree on More right-wing tosh about Hig…
KLS on Crazy anti-HS2 campaigner of t…
SteveP on Crazy anti-HS2 campaigner of t…
Paul Bigland on Asian adventure day 36. George…

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • June 2013

Categories

  • 'Green' madness
  • 'Think Tanks'
  • 144e
  • 2005 London bombing
  • 2017 General election
  • 3 peaks by rail
  • 3 Peaks by ral
  • 51M
  • 7/7
  • Abandoned railways
  • Abu Dhabi
  • ACoRP
  • Adam Smith Institute
  • Adrian Quine
  • Advertising
  • Air Travel
  • Aircraft
  • Airports
  • Airshows
  • Allan Cook
  • Amsterdam
  • Andrea Leadsom MP
  • Andrew Gilligan
  • Andrew Haylen
  • Andy Burnham MP
  • Anti Hs2 mob
  • AONBs
  • Arambol
  • Architecture
  • Art
  • Australia
  • Bali
  • Bangkok
  • Bank holidays
  • Barrow Hill
  • Belgium
  • Bereavement
  • Berlin
  • Bigotry
  • Birmingham
  • Blists Hill
  • Blue passports
  • Boris Johnson MP
  • Brexit
  • Brighouse
  • Brighton
  • British Railways
  • British Railways (BR)
  • Byline media
  • Calder Valley
  • Canals
  • Carillion
  • Carolyne Culver
  • Censorship
  • Charities
  • Cheryl Gillan MP
  • Cheshire
  • China
  • Chris Packham
  • Claire Perry MP
  • Class 155
  • Class 313
  • Class 314s
  • Class 317
  • Class 320
  • Class 321
  • Class 365
  • Class 455
  • Class 456
  • Class 507
  • Class 508
  • Class 60s
  • Class 91
  • Climate Change
  • Communications
  • Community
  • Community rail
  • Community Rail Network
  • COP26
  • Corbynwatch
  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19
  • CP5
  • Crap journalism
  • Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week
  • Crazy kippers
  • Crewe Hub
  • Crossrail
  • Cuba
  • Cumbria
  • Customs
  • Cyberattacks
  • Cycle India
  • Cycling
  • Dawn
  • Democracy
  • Denmark
  • Derbyshire
  • Desiro City
  • Diary
  • Dispatches
  • Doha
  • Donald Trump
  • Doomed
  • Down memory lane
  • East Midlands Railway franchise
  • East Midlands Trains
  • Easter fairy stories
  • ECML
  • Economic illiteracy
  • Economics
  • election2015
  • Engineering
  • Environment
  • Essex
  • Eurostar
  • Euston
  • Extinction Rebellion
  • Fake News
  • Festivals
  • Film and TV
  • Flooding
  • Flora and Fauna
  • Food
  • Food and drink
  • Foot in mouth
  • Gardening
  • GBRf
  • General election
  • General election 2019
  • Georgetown
  • Germany
  • Glasgow
  • Glossop
  • GNGE
  • GNRP
  • Goa
  • Grand Central trains
  • Grant Shapps MP
  • Great Western Railway
  • Greater Anglia franchise
  • Greece
  • Green issues
  • Green madness
  • Green Party
  • Gt Missenden
  • GTR
  • Guido Fawkes
  • GWML
  • GWR franchise
  • Gwyll Jones
  • Halifax
  • Harvil Rd Hs2 protest
  • Harz railway
  • Heathrow 3rd runway
  • High Speed 1
  • High Speed UK
  • History
  • Hitachi
  • Hong Kong
  • House of Lords
  • HS North
  • Hs2
  • Hs2 Bow Group
  • Hs2 petitions
  • Hs2 Phase 2B
  • Hs2 to Crewe
  • Hs2aa
  • HS2Rebellion
  • HSUK
  • Huddersfield
  • Humberside
  • Humour
  • Hurricane Ophelia
  • Hypocrisy
  • I love my job
  • Imperial College London
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Infrarail
  • Innotrans
  • Internet
  • Iolo Williams
  • Ireland
  • Islamophobia
  • Jacob Rees Mogg
  • Jeremy Corbyn
  • Jeremy Corbyn MP
  • Jo Johnson MP
  • Joe Rukin
  • John McDonnell MP
  • John Poyntz
  • Johnathan Bartley
  • Journalism
  • Kanchanaburi
  • Kent
  • Kuala Lumpur
  • Labour election
  • Lancashire
  • Laos
  • Law and order
  • Lazy journalism
  • Leicestershire
  • Liam Halligan
  • libel
  • Lilian Greenwood MP
  • Liverpool
  • LNER
  • Local elections
  • Local elections 2018
  • Lockdown
  • London
  • Lord Berkeley
  • LRT
  • M62 motorway
  • Major Projects Authority
  • Malaysia
  • Manchester
  • Manchester Airport
  • Manchester Victoria
  • MAPA
  • Mark Keir
  • Marketing
  • Martin Tett
  • Melton Mowbray
  • Memory Lane
  • Merseyside
  • Michael Dugher MP
  • Michael Fabricant MP
  • Mid Cheshire against Hs2
  • Miscellany
  • Modern Railways
  • Monorails
  • Music
  • Musings
  • Mytholmroyd
  • Natalie Bennett
  • National Rail Awards
  • National Trust
  • Nepal
  • Network Rail
  • Never a dull life
  • New Economics Foundation
  • New trains
  • New Year
  • New York
  • New Zealand
  • NHS
  • Nigel Farage
  • Norfolk
  • Norland scarecrow festival
  • Northern Powerhouse
  • Northern Rail
  • Nostalgia
  • Nottingham
  • Obituaries
  • Old Oak Common
  • ORR
  • Ossett
  • Our cat, Jet
  • Oxfordshire
  • Pacers
  • Paris terror attack
  • Parliament
  • Pasenger Growth
  • Patrick McLouglin MP
  • Penny Gaines
  • Peter Jones
  • Peterborough
  • Photography
  • Photojournalism
  • Picture of the day
  • Poetry
  • Politics
  • Porterbrook
  • PR nightmares
  • Protest
  • Public Accounts Ctte
  • Pubs
  • rail ale
  • Rail electrification
  • Rail fares
  • Rail Investment
  • Rail Live 2021
  • Rail Live 2022
  • RAIL magazine
  • Rail Moderinsation
  • Rail PR
  • Railfreight
  • Railstaff awards
  • Railtex
  • Railway Benefit Fund (RBF)
  • Railways
  • Rant
  • Religion
  • RFEM
  • Richard Wellings
  • Ride India
  • Road accidents
  • Rolling blogs
  • ROSCOs
  • Royal Mail
  • Royal Wedding 2018
  • RSPB
  • Rugby Observer
  • Rushbearing
  • SAIP
  • Scores on the doors
  • Scotland
  • Scotrail
  • Sheffield
  • Shrewsbury
  • Shropshire
  • Siemens
  • Signalling
  • Silly season
  • Simon Heffer
  • Simon Jenkins
  • Singapore
  • Sleeper trains
  • Snail mail
  • Social media
  • South West Trains
  • Southport
  • Sowerby Bridge
  • Spectator magazine
  • Sri Lanka
  • St Pancras station
  • Stafford
  • Stamford
  • Station buffets
  • StopHs2
  • Surrey
  • Talgo
  • Teresa May
  • Terrorism
  • Tesla
  • Thailand
  • Thameslink
  • The 'Beast from the East'
  • The BBC
  • The Big 6
  • The Daily Express
  • The end of the line
  • The fog
  • The Grauniad
  • The Great Central railway
  • The Green Party
  • The Independent
  • The Moorcock Inn
  • The Piece Hall
  • The Railway Children
  • The Rodelblitz
  • The USA
  • The Woodland Trust
  • Tilford
  • Tony Allen
  • Torquay
  • Tourism
  • TPE
  • Traffic congestion
  • Trams
  • Trans-Pennine electrification
  • Transport
  • Transport for Wales (TfW)
  • Travel
  • Twilight years
  • Twitter
  • Twitter (and how not to use it)
  • UK
  • UK steel industry
  • UKIP
  • Uncategorized
  • Vandalism
  • Victoria Prentis MP
  • Virgin Trains
  • Virgin West Coast
  • Vivarail
  • Wales
  • Walking
  • Warwickshire
  • WCML
  • Weather
  • West Yorkshire
  • Wigan
  • Wildlife Trusts
  • Worcester
  • Work
  • World War 1
  • World War Two
  • Yorkshire
  • YorkshireStopHs2

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Paul Bigland
    • Join 406 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Paul Bigland
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...