Rail News

Spare change

18.06.13: The Government did not happen to notice there was a spare £33bn sitting around in the Treasury and then work out a way to spend it. HS2 is a project developed to solve a specific purpose, to add vital capacity to a stretched network, and t...

London Bridge designs complete

18.06.13: The first designs for the next stage of the London Bridge station overhaul project have been delivered, ready for the next stage in the Thameslink project. Construction has now begun onsite, with three platforms demolished. A joint ven...

Safeguards set out for devolution of London rail franchising

18.06.13: Devolution must include safeguards to protect passengers’ interests, London TravelWatch has urged. If responsibility for rail services is devolved to the Mayor of London, any decisions about the operation of the railway must treat pas...

Government ‘backing the wrong horse’ with HS2

18.06.13: Demand for HS2 has likely been “overestimated” by oversimplified Government modelling, a think tank has argued in a new report. The New Economics Foundation (Nef) has criticised the value for money of the £33bn project and...

Get me away

17.06.13: TfGM has introduced its new smart ticketing system, a card which can pay for all forms of public transport quickly and easily. The catchy name for this scheme is, wait for it, ‘get me there’. The system follows in the footsteps...

£6.9m Stratford station opens

17.06.13: The new railway station at Stratford-upon-Avon Parkway has been delivered ahead of schedule and on budget. The £6.9m station is seven months early, Warwickshire County Council has announced. Buckingham Group Contracting started a desi...

£240m lost through fare dodging each year

17.06.13: Fare dodgers are costing the railway £240m a year, new figures from the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) show. There are an estimated 120,000 train journeys taken each day by passengers without tickets, despite train op...

Smart ticketing launched for Manchester

17.06.13: TfGM has introduced a new smart ticketing system for Manchester, to be known as the ‘get me there’ scheme. It will cover Metrolink trams, buses and rail services with roll-out beginning next year. The name has already proved con...

Whifflet route electrification

14.06.13: This is the RIGHT priority for electrification, as it is wiring up sections which should have been wired up ages ago. It means a very simple wiring up project means another service using the underutilised Glasgow Central Low line to provide a be...

Raising the bar

14.06.13: David Statham has set out plans to radically improve service reliability, passenger service information and how clean FCC’s trains are. The new managing director is taking on a challenging task, with passenger expectations higher than...

Virgin Trains ‘a five star business’

14.06.13: Virgin Trains has renewed its five star certification in the Recognised for Excellence (RfE) programme. The assessment by the British Quality Foundation (BQF) found Virgin Trains improved its overall score by around 20% since it originally achie...

Go Steady advice to prevent public transport falls

14.06.13: A new campaign has been launched by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) to protect vulnerable people using public transport. The ‘Go Steady’ drive will launch during Falls Awareness Week, 17-21 June. Advice and information o...

Civils works to cut Midland Main Line journey times

14.06.13: Network Rail is to rebuild Finedon Station Road bridge as part of a £70m investment to reduce journey times on the Midland Main Line between London and Sheffield. The work will provide extra headroom for trains to travel at higher spe...

First Capital Connect to offer NR extra track access

14.06.13: Network Rail is being offered a one-off programme of extra track access at evenings and weekends by First Capital Connect to ensure lineside equipment is maintained and upgraded. The operator’s new managing director, David Statham, sa...

Rail recovery

13.06.13: Network Rail engineers should be celebrated today for their work to recover rail services at Hatfield and Stainforth, following a landslip that completely destroyed the line for several months. The estimated date for recovery had been postp...