She has shaken her hoary locks again ...

... and reminds her readers of what she wrote - was it only a year ago?

"The answer is simple. Before making a big decision spend as much time as necessary (but no longer) gathering views and information. Think very carefully. Make the decision. Run it by two or three (never more) people whose wisdom and expertise will reinforce your choice, or force you to amend it. Announce your decision. Then go away and get on with something else."

Cassandra is delighted that the unspecified person to whom her wise words were addressed has now taken shape. The Minister could not, even in Cassandra's wildest dreams, be better qualified to listen, to question, to weigh and to decide than Lord Hendy, scarred and bruised as he is by the necessary years he has spent in preparation - though he can hardly have expected it - for his new incarnation. Cassandra wishes him well.

If it is not impertinent Cassandra likes to think of the three H's. Haynes, Hendy, Hynes. The latter seconded from looking after Cassandra's primary interest - the Scottish Railway - to supposedly greater things down south. A change of thinking in the DfT has doubtless happened as the Secretary of State can relax, knowing that she has a Minister perfectly capable of getting it right all by himself. Well, with the other two H's helping as needed. Cassandra is confident that wise counsels are being sought (and offered) and that the SoS, knowing that the railway is in professional hands, will say "get on with it then" when a recommendation crosses her desk. A new government which wishes to impress the electorate with its efficiency will not wish to have the deadening humming and hawing so prevalent in the last half dozen years to drag it back.

And yet, and yet. Cassandra has never been famed for her sunny cheerfulness. While Great Minster House may be a hive of activity there seems to be a gap - silence - up here. The Scottish Government is committed in law to a timetable of electrification so that diesel traction is all but eliminated. Cassandra is aware that money is tight, that Scottish Ministers, facing an election in just over a year and a half, know that for every rail passenger delighted there are a dozen motorists moaning. But the law is the law. If, as seems quite possible, a different party forms the next Scottish Government the present one must ensure that progress is made, that reversing the policy is impossible, and that - whoever is in Bute House in May 2026 - the decarbonisation of Scotland's railway is not slowed. By then H3's two years down south will be almost over, and H1 and H2 can probably manage by themselves ...