Category Archives: Rail transport

High-speed rail link between Sydney and Newcastle could be ‘shovel-ready’ in two years, Albanese government says

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Transport minister Catherine King will pledge $230m for planning work for the first phase of a bullet train on Australia’s east coast

Long-mooted plans for high-speed rail could be “shovel-ready” within two years, according to the federal government, which will on Tuesday announce another $230m for further planning work for fast trains between Sydney and Newcastle, as part of the first phase of an eventual east coast bullet train.

Rail journeys on the new fast train could take as little as one hour between Sydney and Newcastle, and 30 minutes between Sydney and the Central Coast, the transport and infrastructure minister, Catherine King, said. It currently takes more than 2.5 hours to travel by train from Sydney to Newcastle, and almost 1.5 hours from Sydney to the Central Coast.

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Starmer says Reform’s pledge to restore two-child benefit cap in full is ‘shameful’ – UK politics live

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Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has announced party’s plans to cut welfare spending

Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, is giving his speech now.

He has announced, or confirmed, three measures to cut welfare spending.

The number claiming disability benefits for an attention disorder has more than doubled since Covid. We all know a significant number of these claims are spurious …

We will stop those with mild anxiety, depression, and similar conditions from claiming disability benefits and instead encourage them into the dignity of work.

We will end the abuse of the Motability scheme, where expensive cars are handed out for conditions like tennis elbow, and paid for by working people who can’t afford them themselves.

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Manchester-London 7am ‘ghost train’ to carry passengers after outcry over regulator’s decision

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Avanti service was to have been axed from mid-December but would have still run because of needs out of Euston

The express Manchester-London 7am Avanti service will take passengers after all, after the rail regulator conceded defeat in the face of public outcry over a ruling that would have left it running as an empty “ghost train” each day.

The 7am train, the only service linking the cities in under two hours, was set to be axed from the passenger table from mid-December – but would, as the Guardian reported on Saturday, have kept running empty from Piccadilly each day so it could run morning trains back out of Euston.

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GWR train fitted with F1 tech for two-month superfast wifi trial

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Tryout of system, which switches between signals from 5G masts to low Earth-orbit satellites, could lead to wider rollout

Train wifi in the UK, long a source of frustration for passengers, is about to get radically faster – for a lucky few at least.

A two-month trial has begun on one Great Western Railway (GWR) train, fitted with technology from Formula One that switches between the signals from 5G masts to low Earth-orbit satellites to provide almost seamless, superfast wifi.

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Avanti accused of ‘virtue signalling without virtue’ over wheelchair user art

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Campaigners say train image of two wheelchair users does not reflect reality of single wheelchair space in standard class

Campaigners have accused one of the UK’s leading train companies of “virtue signalling without the virtue” after it used images of wheelchair users that they say do not reflect the reality of travelling with a disability.

Baraka Carberry, a digital artist, created a new livery for Avanti West Coast, which provides rail links between London and Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland, that shows “scenes of people, culture, colours and joy”. Titled Together We Roll, the images stretch across all seven carriages of the new Evero train, which the company says reduces carbon compared with the old fleet of trains.

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RMT accepts three-year pay deal for London Underground staff

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Agreement that will increase drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027 comes after strike action in September

The RMT union has accepted a three-year inflation-plus pay deal for London Underground workers, ending the dispute that led to travel chaos in London in September and increasing drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027.

The deal, with an initial 3.4% increase backdated to this April, means London Underground staff pay will rise in line with RPI inflation – higher than the CPI rate normally used for index-linked pay rises – with guaranteed minimum rates if inflation falls, making the total deal worth at least 9.2%.

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Virgin Trains on track to challenge Eurostar cross-Channel monopoly with access to key depot

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UK rail regulator approves Richard Branson firm’s application to use Temple Mills site in London

Richard Branson’s train company is a step closer to challenging Eurostar’s monopoly on transporting passengers across the Channel after the UK rail regulator approved Virgin Train’s application to use a key depot in east London.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) approved Virgin’s application to use the Temple Mills depot in Leyton – which is used for maintaining and storing trains. It said the move would unlock £700m of investment in new services and create 400 jobs.

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Eurostar to run doubledecker trains through Channel tunnel from 2031

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Operator signs €2bn deal with Alstom amid boom in international rail travel from UK

Eurostar is to start running doubledecker trains through the Channel tunnel to meet growing demand for international rail travel from the UK.

The rail operator announced it had signed a €2bn (£1.7bn) deal for at least 30 – and up to 50 – new trains from the manufacturer Alstom.

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Storm Amy: man dies in Ireland as fresh weather warning issued for UK

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Man dies in ‘weather-related incident’ in Co Donegal, while Met Office issues yellow wind warning for whole of UK

A man has died and a fresh weather warning covers the whole of the UK as Storm Amy continues to bring widespread disruption.

Irish police said the man died in a “weather-related” incident in the Letterkenny area of County Donegal, Ireland, shortly after 4.15pm on Friday.

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It’s goodnight Vienna as Paris sleeper train to Austria and Berlin hit by cuts

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Some Nightjet services suspended from mid-December after French withdrawal amid public budget crisis

Night train services linking Paris, Berlin and Vienna are to end from mid-December because of the French government’s withdrawal of funding, the Austrian national rail operator has said, in a blow to sleeper travel on important European routes.

ÖBB, the largest provider of such trains in Europe, has led a drive to revive a once popular form of low-emission transport as an alternative to flying.

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UK government backs return of international rail travel to Kent stations

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Ashford and Ebbsfleet have been shut to cross-Channel services since 2020, with Eurostar calling them unviable

Hopes that international rail services could return to UK stations abandoned by Eurostar have grown, with the government backing new competitors who plan to serve stops in Kent.

Ministers have been leaning on the rail regulator to give crucial space on the railway to prospective entrants who pledge to bring cross-Channel services back to Ashford and Ebbsfleet stations – and possibly London’s Stratford International.

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London homes 500 metres from station ‘command £42,700 premium over those 1,500 metres away’

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Nationwide survey in London, Manchester and Glasgow shows pandemic trends may be reversing as more people return to office

People buying homes in London 500 metres from a tube or railway station pay £42,700 more than buyers of similar properties 1,500 metres away from transport hubs, according to new data.

The figures indicate that despite the reshaping of the housing market sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and dramatic changes to working patterns, the traditional estate agent mantra of “good transport links” continues to wield its power over buyers.

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Train named Ctrl Alt Deleaf to help blast billions of leaves from Great Britain’s tracks

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Network Rail says train named after public vote will join fleet of ‘unsung hero’ leaf-busters this autumn

If Boaty McBoatface taught us one thing, it’s that the public do not take a naming ceremony particularly seriously.

Cue the newly named leaf-removal train: Ctrl Alt Deleaf.

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LNER urges customers to be vigilant after passenger details accessed in cyber-attack

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Data breach at third-party supplier involves contact details and some information about previous journeys

The train operator LNER has urged customers to be wary of unsolicited communications after revealing some passengers’ contact details and journey records have been accessed in a cyber-attack.

The data breach took place at a third-party supplier, and LNER said no bank or payment details or password information had been accessed.

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London tube strike shuts down services, causing congestion on roads

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Downing Street says ‘Londoners rightly fed up’ as commuters forced to find other routes to work on first of four days of RMT action

Downing Street said Londoners would be “rightly fed up” as commuters turned to the other trains, buses and bikes – or just stayed at home – as strikes by the RMT union closed the underground on Monday.

The numbers attempting to use any public transport were down by about a fifth, according to Transport for London (TfL) data, but that still left many crowding on to bus and overground services or congested roads at the start of four days of commuter misery.

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This old railway yard is for sale. Could new solar-powered trains be built there?

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Push for NSW locomotive workshop to be returned to government hands and used to retrofit diesel trains and help meet 50% Australian-made quotas

One of New South Wales’ few remaining large railway yards has been put up for sale, with locals pushing for state and federal government intervention to reinvigorate the rail industry.

Lithgow’s locomotive workshop, owned by Pacific National and reported to have an asking price of $35m, includes maintenance pit bays and outbuildings. It was ceded to the freight operator in 2003 when the state privatised its freight services and has been little-used since.

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Tap-in, tap-out rail ticket trial to streamline fares using GPS tracking

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East Midlands passengers to test digital tickets that will automatically charge best fares at end of day

Train passengers in the East Midlands are to test technology that will let them tap in and out for journeys and be charged the best fare for their trip at the end of the day.

Trials of digital rail tickets based on GPS tracking will begin on Monday as part of the government’s plan to improve the rail network’s complex fare system.

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Timetables, tricky tickets and high prices: the problems with European cross-border rail travel

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For all the fanfare over new routes, fast and efficient rail services between major cities remain a rarity

At 9.55am every day since December, a German ICE high-speed train has left the Gare de l’Est in Paris headed, via Strasbourg, Karlsruhe and Frankfurt, for Berlin Hauptbahnhof, where – all being well – it pulls in just over eight hours later.

Remarkably, the service is the first direct, high-speed, centre-to-centre rail link between the capitals of the EU’s two biggest countries. Run by Deutsche Bahn (DB) and France’s SNCF, it has been hailed as a milestone in European train travel.

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Storm Floris: Scottish government holds emergency meeting amid warnings of more UK travel disruption

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Scotland says there have been 119 incidents on the rail network caused by Storm Floris, including 75 tree-related ones

The Scottish government has held emergency meetings in response to the “significant disruption” caused by Storm Floris across the country, with warnings of further travel chaos on Tuesday as poor weather continues.

On Monday night, the Scottish government’s Resilience Room held a meeting to help decide an appropriate response to the storm, which has included power outages and almost 120 rail incidents. Representatives from the Met Office, Police Scotland, Transport Scotland and transport and utilities companies were in attendance.

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At least three people killed after train derails in southern Germany

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Regional passenger train carrying about 100 people derails near Riedlingen, leaving more people seriously injured

Three people were killed and several others injured when a regional passenger train derailed in a wooded area in southwestern Germany on Sunday, police said.

About 100 passengers were onboard the train when the accident occurred at about 6.10 pm local time near the town of Riedlingen in Baden-Wüerttemberg state.

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