Track and signalling

Battered Dawlish rail line gets £80m for new protective sea wall

15 February 2019A new taller sea wall is to be built at Dawlish as the DfT announced that up to £80m is being made available to build it – five years on from the storms which wreaked havoc on the rail line. Around £40m was spent by Network Rail...

TfL awards £220m contract to Balfour Beatty for tube track renewals

14 February 2019Balfour Beatty has won a £220m contract from TfL to carry out track renewals on the London Underground. The four-year contract encompasses all aspects of track renewals including track, points and crossings, and trackside drainage across ov...

Select committee to decide on amendments to HS2’s northern Phase 2 plan

13 February 2019MPs are to vote on amendments to the construction of the second phase of HS2, Phase 2a, to decide whether or not to take forward major changes to layouts and designs of the proposed network. A select committee of MPs will rule on the changes prop...

New Forest railway line proposed despite criticism for ‘pie in the sky’ idea

13 February 2019The construction of a New Forest railway line and the reopening of stations closed in the ‘Beeching cuts’ has been recommended, but a local MP has dismissed plans as “pie in the sky.” A detailed costing for a raft of rail...

HS2 land acquisition costs could spiral five times higher than projected

07 February 2019The cost of acquiring land and property for Phase 1 of HS2 could be almost five times the original estimation. Forecasts based on freedom of information requests from an anti-HS2 campaign group have revealed that the total land costs could now be...

Siemens-Alstom merger blocked by EU Commission in landmark decision

06 February 2019The EU Commission has officially blocked a merger between Siemens and Alstom, stating that the companies “were not willing to address our serious competition concerns.” Despite months of negotiations and both the French and German gov...

TrackWater: Embracing data in flood prevention

05 February 2019Mike Harding, from Lancaster University’s Data Science Institute, introduces us to TrackWater: an innovative project between Lancaster University and Transport Systems Catapult. Network Rail estimates that, between 2008 and 2018, more than...

Flying Banana reaps the fruit of its labour

05 February 2019Steve Quinby, Network Rail’s head of data collection, gives us the rundown on the state-of-the-art ‘Flying Banana’ train. Managing a railway stretching 20,000 miles – from Wick to Penzance, Lowestoft to Aberystwth, and the...

Long-awaited plans to build a sea wall to protect Dawlish rail line unveiled by Network Rail

04 February 2019  Image credit - Moorefam

RAIB issues warning over brakes and wheel safety following derailment incident

01 February 2019The RAIB has published a warning about the maintenance of freight vehicles and the safety of wheel and braking systems on trains which can lead to derailment. In a safety digest published following an investigation into the derailment of a rail h...

TfN unveils £70bn transport masterplan for the north

31 January 2019Transport for the North (TfN) has launched its £70bn blueprints to overhaul northern transport infrastructure over the next 30 years, connecting the major cities and moving forward with its flagship project Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR). T...

Network Rail unveils winners of 10-year contracts for £5bn rail system upgrades

30 January 2019Network Rail has announced its preferred bidders to deliver track and rail system upgrades over the next 10 years in the south of England and in Scotland, worth an estimated £5bn. The contracts, initially five years with the option to exten...

Five route options for East West Rail project unveiled

29 January 2019The East West Railway Company (EWRC) has unveiled five proposed routes for the new rail line between Bedford and Cambridge as a public consultation on the next phase of the scheme gets underway. The major East West Rail project will run from Oxfo...

Plans for tram-trains in Manchester unveiled as Grayling and Burnham mull expansion of Metrolink

25 January 2019Proposals for an expansion of Greater Manchester’s (GM) tram network are in the works, Chris Grayling and Andy Burnham have announced, with plans for greater devolved control for the region and the introduction of tram-trains being considere...

TfL admits ‘disappointing’ Elizabeth Line progress but restates commitment to delivering Crossrail 2

25 January 2019TfL has said it remains fully committed to delivering Crossrail 2 in papers published ahead of next week’s board meeting, but revealed it is disappointed with progress on the completion of the Elizabeth Line. In the papers, the London trans...