I snuck out for the first public run of the S-Stock this morning.  Here are some pictures.  First impressions of the new air-conditioned Underground trains later.

Just a snippet that suggests that Boris’s PR-driven attempts to put clear blue water between himself and the multiple personality disorder currently masquerading as the country’s central government need keeping a close eye on:

Grassroots social activism took a further hit yesterday when it emerged that mayor of London Boris Johnson’s £4m incubator fund [...]

One of Boris’s promises that is never actually going to happen was this one:

I also want to improve the Tube. In the short-term, we must look again at air-conditioning on the Tube.  It is incredible that we can make mobile phones as small as credit cards yet still not work out a way [...]

Further to the poke we had yesterday at the Victoria Line, Ross Lydall in the Standard confirms what I suspected – the recent Victoria Line problems are traceable to the introduction of the new 2009TS tube stock, and faults on the new fleet are running, currently, 23 times higher than the old 1967 stock. [...]

Anyone else pissed off about the sheer amount of branding Barclays have purchased for their £5m a year?  Is that really value for money?  Someone else who’s exercised about it is Justin McGuirk, who’s excellent Guardian piece also includes this tribute to the Mayor’s liking for getting the rich to pay for his vanity [...]

From Liberal Conspiracy, I note that the Government is now being quite open about their intention of Porterising central London:

The Government recognises that some households, particularly in very high cost areas, may have to move as a consequence of these measures. In London, some households may need to move from central London [...]

Quick scan through the July 13th TfL Finance Committee meeting (prop. Daniel Moylan, who props the whole place these days, it seems).  The Project Approvals document is our usual check-in, to check on projects going down/up/in/out of TfL’s roadmap.  What do we have here?

UIP8702 – Thameslink

Thameslink 2000 2012 whenever is not a [...]

Please excuse the title as, having grown up watching Bill & Ben on TV, I never learnt to speak proper like what Boris Johnson can. In his chickenfeed column this week, Johnson plugs a new publication which claims to explain the high levels of illiteracy in London. Is it a weighty tome by a [...]

Just a pointer to the much more locally attuned views of Darryl Chamberlain, who has been busy tearing a strip off TfL over the Blackwall Tunnel closures, having discovered an early morning flaw in the arrangements.

Also, the grassroots campaign is still going and still not in a great mood, by the looks [...]

They should be coming thick and fast – three are done (38/507/521), three are known about (18/149/25) and the seventh debendification, Route 12, has just been announced.  Let’s update our chart:

Done

Route    Tender    5    5+    Old PVR    New PVR    Revised End Date    Factor
507    1-Jun-2002    1-Jun-2007    1-Jun-2009    9    15    25-Jul-2009  1.67
[...]