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

Posted on July 1, 2019 by Admin

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.

European companies can’t compete against global giants

Posted on May 17, 2019 by Admin

Finance ministers say Europe is increasingly dependent on Chinese and US technology

It boasts the world’s second biggest economy, a huge consumer market of about 500 million people and prodigious pools of talent and capital, not to mention two of the world’s most important financial centres.

But Europe is struggling to match its great rivals, the US and China, in creating the kind of global firms that increasingly dominate the 21st-century marketplace.

No-deal Brexit ‘could disrupt London commuter trains’

Posted on February 21, 2019 by Admin

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.

Rail tsar says stop taking customers for granted

Posted on February 6, 2019 by Admin

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.