Union threatens ‘biggest rail strike in modern UK history’

Posted on April 20, 2022 by Admin

RMT to ballot more than 40,000 workers at Network Rail and train firms in dispute over jobs and pay

More than 40,000 railway workers are to be balloted in a dispute over jobs and pay that a union says could result in Britain’s biggest rail strike in modern history.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) said staff would be asked to vote on strike action over Network Rail’s plans to cut at least 2,500 maintenance jobs as part of a £2bn reduction in spending on the network.

Wrongly built drainage system led to Stonehaven train crash, investigators find

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Admin

Network Rail failed to notice that works by Carillion on Aberdeen to Glasgow line did not match the design

A drainage system wrongly built by Carillion and unchecked by Network Rail led to the Stonehaven train crash, investigators have found, when a Scotrail train hit debris washed by rain on to the railway track.

Three people died on 12 August 2020 in the worst fatal event on the UK railways in 18 years, when the passenger train from Aberdeen to Glasgow derailed at Carmont, near Stonehaven, after heavy rainfall.

Stonehaven train crash report calls for tighter heavy rain restrictions

Posted on September 10, 2020 by Admin

Local route managers and signallers will be given more power to cut speeds or close lines

Heavy rain could lead to more trains being cancelled or told to travel at low speed in future, following the Stonehaven crash that killed three people in Aberdeenshire last month.

An interim report by Network Rail into the tragedy spelled out strengthened procedures that could hasten line closures in bad weather, pending safety inspections.

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

Posted on November 3, 2019 by Admin

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.