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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Push for NSW locomotive workshop to be returned to government hands and used to retrofit diesel trains and help meet 50% Australian-made quotas
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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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Operator says if rivals are allowed to squeeze into existing facilities it could jeopardise its investment
Eurostar has urged the UK government to choose a “credible long-term strategy” for international rail or risk “falling behind” the rest of Europe, before a crucial decision by the regulator that could end its cross-Channel monopoly.
The high-speed train operator warned that a “premature” ruling from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to allow competitors to squeeze trains into existing facilities could jeopardise its planned investment and expansion.
Continue reading...About 110 million people suffer stress and sleep disturbance that lead to tens of thousands of early deaths
More than 110 million people across Europe suffer high levels of health-damaging noise pollution, according to a report. The resulting physiological stress and sleep disturbance leads to 66,000 early deaths a year and many cases of heart disease, diabetes and depression.
The report, from the European Environment Agency (EEA), focuses on noise from cars, trains and aeroplanes and found that 20% of the population of the European Economic Area (EEA) were affected. Separate research, using a slightly lower threshold for dangerous noise pollution, found that 40% of the UK population were exposed to harmful transport noise.
Continue reading...People report waiting hours in hot carriages after fault near Loughborough Junction brings some services to halt
Scores of UK passengers were forced to evacuate trains and walk along the tracks on Saturday after some services were halted due to a fault on the hottest day of the year so far.
Videos posted on social media showed people walking on the tracks beside Thameslink trains near Loughborough Junction station in south London.
Continue reading...Cross-Channel rail operator, which is trying to fend off rivals for its London depot space, regards early 2030s as feasible
Eurostar has vowed to run direct trains from the UK to Germany and Switzerland, as it attempts to fend off potential competitors eyeing its London depot space.
The cross-Channel rail operator’s chief executive, Gwendoline Cazenave, said she had no doubt the direct services would run in the early 2030s despite the failure of previous ventures to connect London and Frankfurt.
Continue reading...Motoring organisations warn of heavy traffic, and delays and cancellations will hit two rail routes out of London
The bank holiday getaway is likely to be a tricky one, with transport analysts predicting congested roads and the year’s busiest day so far for departing airports, while long-distance rail passengers dodge the start of more engineering work.
Motoring organisations forecast traffic to be at its worst on Friday, with many drivers surveyed apparently taking an extra day off before the long weekend and half-term break for most schools in England and Wales.
Continue reading...Rail union wants network temporarily shut down and an investigation into ‘one of the worst safety incidents we’ve seen’
Passengers held on to handrails after a door stayed open on a driverless Metro racing underneath Sydney, with a transport union later calling for the system to be shut down until safety measures were put in place.
A “door fault” was identified on a train travelling between Chatswood and Crows Nest stations at about 8.01am on Wednesday, the Metro Trains Sydney chief executive, Daniel Williams, said in a statement.
Continue reading...RMT union wins 87% backing from members for improved package for train managers at Avanti West Coast
Train managers on Britain’s biggest intercity service, Avanti West Coast, have settled a dispute over rest-day working, ending a series of weekend strikes.
The RMT union said 87% of its members had voted to accept a deal including additional pay for working weekends and an agreement on the allocation of staffing for extra shifts.
Continue reading...Lord Hendy says important changes are happening but they follow ‘six years of torpor’
Passengers may lose patience with the government before it can make the changes needed to fix the railway, the rail minister, Lord Hendy, admitted, as he promised that action was coming after “years of torpor”.
The government is midway through a consultation on plans for a reformed, integrated Great British Railways (GBR), with legislation to enact it coming later in 2025, Hendy said.
Continue reading...Kyriakos Mitsotakis says protests over train disaster emphasise the need for ‘safe and modern’ transport system
The Greek prime minister has vowed to upgrade the country’s railways as his embattled government braces for a vote of no confidence after huge protests over a 2023 train crash that killed 57 people.
Two days after hundreds of thousands took to the streets in fury over the response to the disaster on its second anniversary, Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledged that not enough had been done to build a “safe and modern” transport system, saying the largest protests in recent history had emphasised the demand for action.
Continue reading...Scathing committee report lambasts DfT and HS2 for failing to work together effectively
HS2 has become “a casebook example of how not to run a major project”, according to the latest scathing report on the high-speed rail line from MPs on the public accounts committee (PAC).
The PAC lambasted the Department for Transport (DfT) and HS2 Ltd for failing to work together effectively, and told them not to waste the opportunity to get a grip on costs during the project’s latest “reset”.
Continue reading...Partnership comes as London station looks at ways to almost triple passenger numbers
St Pancras railway station in London and the Channel tunnel operator have agreed to work together to open up more trains from Britain to France, and routes to Germany and Switzerland.
The agreement is the latest sign of growing momentum for new passenger rail links from England across the Channel, after Great Britain’s only international station announced plans to triple the number of people who can travel through every hour.
Continue reading...New scheme, aimed at reducing platform dashes, will see schedules deleted from boards three minutes before departure
Rail bosses have been accused of patronising passengers by hiding trains’ departure information minutes before they are due to leave in a bid to tackle last-moment platform dashes.
Under the scheme, which is being trialled at King’s Cross, the final call for long-distance trains will be made four minutes before departure. Train details will be deleted from departure boards three minutes before they leave.
Continue reading...Steve Reed says plans for 1km curved structure to protect bats from high-speed railway are ‘batshit crazy’
A bat shelter costing more than £100m near HS2 has been described by the environment secretary as “batshit crazy”.
HS2 Ltd is spending the sum on the protection structure in Buckinghamshire, it emerged last year. All bats are legally protected in the UK.
The curved structure, which has been described by the HS2 Ltd chair, Sir Jon Thompson, as a “shed”, will run for about 1km alongside Sheephouse Wood to create a barrier allowing the creatures to cross above the high-speed railway without being affected by passing trains.
But Steve Reed has criticised the plans and told the Fabian Society’s new year conference: “I mean, (to spend) that vast amount of money on a tunnel for bats when there were so many other public services crying out for funding – it’s batshit crazy.
“And it happened because the previous government didn’t have a grip on the public finances, didn’t have a grip on infrastructure projects, and didn’t really have a grip on what was happening to nature either.”
Asked about the potential for tension between prioritising wildlife and the environment and pushing through planning projects, as the government has promised to do to boost economic growth, Reed said both could be achieved.
“It’s not either or, it’s not growth or nature or the environment. We can do the two together,” he said.
Reed also suggested any plans to build a third runway at Heathrow airport would be subject to a “proper consultation” to ensure “mitigations” were in place to make it work.
Asked about the prospect of expanding the airport, which reports suggest the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will back, the MP for Streatham and Croydon North in London said: “Of course, it’s speculation that you’re talking about … but if there were any proposal like that, then there would be a proper consultation, hopefully not lasting decades as it has done previously, because you don’t have to take that amount of time to get to good decisions.
“But it would take into account all of those factors, mitigations, what we will need to do to make sure that it could work.
“Since you mentioned my voting record on that one, I voted against expanding Heathrow last time because I was in favour of expanding Gatwick because it would provide economic growth that would benefit south London, where my constituency is. So I see the link.”