Category Archives: Rail industry

Crossrail faces further delays and will cost more than £18bn

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TfL says aim is for the London rail link to open ‘as soon as practically possible in 2021’

Crossrail will not open until 2021 and has incurred a further cost overrun that will take the total price of the London rail link to more than £18bn, Transport for London (TfL) has announced.

The latest assessment for the opening of the central section has ruled out late 2020 and the aim is for Crossrail to open “as soon as practically possible in 2021”, the capital’s transport authority said. TfL had previously said the Elizabeth line, as the service will be called, was unlikely to start running before 2021 but had kept an autumn 2020 opening in its plans.

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Train firms backtrack over pledge to ban raw sewage on railway lines

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Operators admit target to end ‘disgusting practice’ by the end of the year will not be met

A pledge to end the dumping of human waste on railway tracks in England and Wales by the end of the year will no longer be met, Network Rail and train firms have admitted.

Although Network Rail’s former chief executive, Mark Carne, said in 2017 he had secured government agreement to end the “disgusting practice” by 2019, several companies will continue to use trains whose toilets flush directly onto the track.

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Northern Powerhouse seeks more control of HS2 rail scheme

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Business and city leaders warn of economic damage of cancellation and call for 2012 Olympics-style authority

A review of HS2 by northern business and city leaders has called for control of construction of the high-speed railway to be devolved to the north and Midlands – and warned that its possible cancellation would leave no viable alternatives for transforming their economies.

The Northern Powerhouse Independent Review (NPIR), established to inform or pre-empt the government’s own review of HS2, recommended a new body, HS2 North, be established to integrate HS2 with proposed Northern Powerhouse Rail links.

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Boris Johnson appoints arch-critic of HS2 as transport adviser

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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

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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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European companies can’t compete against global giants

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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.

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No-deal Brexit ‘could disrupt London commuter trains’

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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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Rail tsar says stop taking customers for granted

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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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