‘A serious urban mistake’: why Paris went sour on the new Gare du Nord

As developers aim to turn France’s busiest train station into a gargantuan airport-style mall, Parisians fear for the local neighbourhood – and the station’s soul

“When you tell people in Paris you live near the Gare du Nord, they usually grimace,” sighed Sarah, a French academic in her 50s who has lived on a narrow, traffic-choked street next to Europe’s busiest station for 30 years.

“Architecturally, the station building is superb. But neighbourhoods around stations are never easy, wherever they are in the world.”

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Reports of sexual assaults on London Underground soar

Campaigners say incidents are still underreported and more must be done to stop attackers

Sexual assaults reported on the tube have soared by 42% in the last four years, new figures show.

Attacks recorded on the London Underground leapt from 844 in 2015-16 to 1,206 in 2018-19, according to analysis by the PA news agency.

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Boy aged 12 dies from injuries after electric shock on railway track

Police say boy died on Saturday night, a week after coming into contact with power lines

A boy injured when he came into contact with overhead power lines on a railway track a week ago has died.

The 12-year-old was being treated for severe electric shock after the incident in Glasgow last Sunday. He died in hospital on Saturday night, British Transport Police (BTP) said.

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Hands off our treasured railway, say locals in Sóller, Mallorca

Anonymous investors have launched a hostile €25m bid for Sóller’s locally owned heritage train link to Palma

Indignant residents of the Mallorcan town of Sóller have said their railway is not for sale after a group of investors launched a hostile takeover bid.

The town has been linked to the capital, Palma, with a picturesque narrow-gauge railway since 1912. The train, with its wooden carriages, has been in continuous use ever since, climbing 200 metres and passing through 13 tunnels on its 27km journey.

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German MP sparks row after proposing an end to first-class rail travel

Co-chair of leftwing Die Linke party says move would reduce overcrowding and save energy

A leading leftwing politician has sparked a row in Germany by proposing the rail operator Deutsche Bahn scraps first-class carriages to reduce overcrowding and improve energy efficiency.

Bernd Riexinger, the co-leader of Die Linke party, said having two classes of travel in regional trains in particular made no sense when the emphasis should be on energy efficiency and making rail travel more accessible.

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UK energy watchdog demands answers after major power cut

Outage caused travel chaos and cut electricity to almost 1m people in England and Wales

The energy watchdog, Ofgem, is demanding answers from the National Grid after a power cut left people stuck in trains for up to nine hours and cut electricity to almost 1 million people in England and Wales.

The biggest power outage in a decade caused widespread disruption on the rail network during the evening rush hour on Friday. Traffic light systems stopped working, causing gridlock in some areas, and Newcastle airport was left in darkness. Power had been restored to 900,000 customers by Saturday, but the rail network was struggling to get services back to normal.

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Transport chaos across England and Wales after major power cuts

Failure on National Grid network affects train services and road users

Large parts of England and Wales have been left without electricity following a major power cut, electricity network operators have said, with a serious impact reported on rail and road services, including city traffic lights.

Passengers were shut out of some of the country’s busiest train stations during the Friday evening rush hour, while hundreds of thousands of homes were left without electricity after what the National Grid described as a problem with two generators.

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Boris Johnson appoints arch-critic of HS2 as transport adviser

Journalist Andrew Gilligan has long argued for a slower, cheaper rail line to be built

The prospects for survival of the high-speed rail line HS2 look slimmer after the prime minister, Boris Johnson, appointed an arch-critic as transport adviser.

The journalist Andrew Gilligan, who was cycling tsar in Johnson’s London mayoralty, has long opposed what he says is a “disastrous scheme”, arguing for a slower, cheaper line to be built instead.

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Northern’s Pacer trains to run into 2020 despite retirement pledge

Rail firm privately backtracks on vow to MPs that fleet would be retired by end of year

Northern rail promised MPs last week its fleet of hated “buses-on-rails” would be retired by the end of the year, but it has emerged the firm had already privately warned the transport secretary it might have to keep some of them in service well into 2020.

Rob Warnes, the rail firm’s network planning director, told the all-party parliamentary group (AAPG) on rail in the north that all of its antiquated fleet of Pacers would be gone by the end of the year, according to Ian Mearns, the Labour MP who chairs the AAPG.

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Public to have say on renaming White Hart Lane station Tottenham Hotspur

Exclusive: FoI request reveals proposal was at advanced stage after lobbying by Tottenham Hotspur football club

The public will be given a say on controversial plans to rename a train station near Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium after it was revealed the proposal was at an advanced stage after intensive lobbying by the club.

The Guardian reported in March that White Hart Lane station was to be rebranded after the football club lobbied the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and Transport for London (TfL). The transport body had been insisting the club should pay more than £14.7m for the privilege, in the face of vigorous resistance from Spurs.

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Business heads urge next PM to commit to finishing HS2

CBI among industry groups to sign open letter amid concerns over project’s future

Business leaders are calling on the next prime minister to commit to completing HS2, adding that if they do not they risk blocking future investment in the north.

In an open letter, more than 20 figures from industry and commerce have called for the next Tory leader to back the project in full.

It comes amid speculation that the next prime minister – with Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson now the final two MPs vying for the position – could decide to axe the second phase of the project due to concerns over spiralling costs.

Johnson is reported to have asked a former boss of the £56bn scheme to carry out a review if he is made prime minister, while Hunt has said HS2 is “absolutely vital” and he would not scrap the project in its entirety.

Signatures of the letter include the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and London First, the BBC reports.

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Shrewd rebranding of stations and bus stops | Letters

Renaming Bicester Village was a canny move, says NIck Chadwick, while Edward Smith wonders why some bus stops have shop names

I enjoyed Ian Jack’s article on the branding of railway station names (From Singer to IBM, branding the railways is nothing new, 23 March). He might also have mentioned Chiltern Railways’ renaming of Bicester Town station, on the opening of the Oxford to Marylebone service, as Bicester Village in recognition of its proximity to the shopping outlet of the same name. Locals were furious, but it was canny, ensuring trains were well used throughout the day.
Nick Chadwick
Oxford

• I have often wondered why some bus stops are named after stores and others not. On the number 94 route, which goes down Oxford Street and Regent Street in London, there are stops called Selfridges and Hamley’s Toy Store. Do these pay Transport for London for this exposure?
Edward Smith
London

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Leaders in the north: HS2 is vital for our growth | Letters

Northern council leaders say that HS2 will add billions to their economies and create half a million jobs; while Steve Rotheram, metro mayor of Liverpool, says it will be a game-changer for his city and region

HS2 is a once-in-two-century chance to rebalance the UK economy. It isn’t just about creating links to London. There are over 25 stops from Scotland to the south-east. It increases desperately needed capacity on existing lines, creating more space for extra commuter trains. It takes lorries off the road as freight moves to rail, creating more space for the driver on our motorways. There is something in HS2 for every traveller.

The report by the New Economics Foundation (Scrap HS2 and pour £56bn into regions, says thinktank, 20 March) ignores what cities including Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester and Birmingham have all been doing to make sure we benefit. Altogether, cities around the route have plans to create nearly 500,000 jobs, 100,000 new homes and add billions to the economy of the country. Poor connections between our major cities have been holding us back for far too long. Together HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and Midlands Connect will give us the links that will unleash investment and bring prosperity to the Midlands and the north.

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How public transport actually turns a profit in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong MTR’s ‘rail plus property’ model keep fares cheap and makes the company completely self-sustaining. Could loss-making metro systems in other cities learn lessons?

“Once we build the railway, the value of land rises and we capture the increase in value,” says Jacob Kam, managing director and soon-to-be chief executive, of Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) Corporation.

Related: Hong Kong faces commuter chaos after rare train collision

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Commuters warned of ‘teething problems’ with new rail timetable

Rail Delivery Group says lessons have been learned following last summer’s chaotic timetable overhaul

Passengers face “teething problems” on the rail network when new timetables are introduced in May, the organisation that represents the industry has warned. However, the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) said that the introduction of more than 1,000 extra services will help to tackle overcrowding.

Last May there was chaos when Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) – the parent company of Southern Rail, Gatwick Express, Thameslink and Great Northern – and Northern overhauled their timetables with the aim of laying on hundreds of extra trains a day.

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No-deal Brexit ‘could disrupt London commuter trains’

Buildup of freight at Channel tunnel might affect services into capital, operator warns

Rail passengers commuting into London could have services disrupted by freight trains if a no-deal Brexit causes logjams at the Channel tunnel, it has emerged.

Go-Ahead, the company behind the rail operator Southeastern, said it was working with the government to try to ensure commuters were not affected.

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On board Zimbabwe’s only commuter train – a photo essay

Chugging through townships, maize fields and scrubland as the sun rises, Zimbabwe’s only commuter train is cheap and reliable – two qualities its passengers cherish in a downwards-spiralling economy

Each morning sleepy travellers walk to the tracks and clamber aboard Zimbabwe’s only commuter train as it prepares to leave the Cowdray Park settlement at 6am and embark on its 12-mile (20km) journey into Bulawayo, the country’s second city.

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Rail tsar says stop taking customers for granted

Keith Williams criticises micromanaging by government as one of the failings driving passengers away

Britain’s rail industry will “drive passengers away” if it continues to operate as it does now, according to the man leading the government-commissioned review into the working of the railways.

Keith Williams, the former British Airways chief executive, also suggested that the government had compounded problems by “micromanaging the industry” through ever more specific rail franchises.

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Train derailment in India kills seven people – video

Seven passengers are reported to have been killed and several others injured when a Delhi-bound train derailed in India’s eastern state of Bihar, railways officials have said. Sixty people were killed last year when a commuter train travelling at high speed ran through a crowd of people on tracks in northern India. India’s state railways, largely built under British colonial rule, have a poor safety record after decades of underinvestment in infrastructure

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At least seven killed after train derails in Bihar, India

Coaches of Delhi-bound train leave track 30 miles from Bihar state capital, Patna

Seven passengers are reported to have been killed and several others injured when a Delhi-bound train derailed in India’s eastern state of Bihar, railways officials have said.

Eleven coaches of the Seemanchal Express left the rails near Sahadai Buzurg railway station, about 50 km (30 miles) from the state capital, Patna, early in the morning, the railways ministry said.

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