The Alstom works in Derby is in line for an order of up to 90 cars for the Elizabeth Line, according to reports. Such an order for more Aventra vehicles would not be a new contract, because an option for enlarging the TfL fleet already exists. Meanwhile, the RMT is calling for an urgent summit to discuss the threat to the Derby works, where closure would mean the loss of thousands of jobs. Some reports today claim that the deal has already been done, while others say only that Alstom is in ‘intense discussions’ with the Department for Transport and Transport for London, and that no contracts have yet been signed but could be concluded next month. Last night transport secretary Mark Harper used social media site X to report ‘a good, constructive meeting with Alstom Group CEO Henri Poupart-Lafarge on the future of train manufacturing in the UK’. while Alstom posted that it was ‘now in a period of intense discussions with the UK Government and Transport for London about a potential train order for the Elizabeth Line, given the levels of passenger demand. This could help secure the future of our Derby Litchurch Lane site.’  Alstom had already taken the first steps toward shedding 1300 jobs at Litchchurch Lane alone, and as the uncertainty continued, the RMT called for an ‘urgent summit’ of unions, the rail industry and the government to thrash out a plan to save Alstom in Derby, including the option of nationalisation. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said it was ‘tragic’ that passengers and the climate were in desperate need of modern and reliable trains and skilled workers and capacity were ready to deliver that, but the government and rail industry had not been able to match up the demand and supply of new trains. He continued: ‘The root cause of this failure is the privatisation and break up of a once unified public rail industry into multiple companies, with competing, profit motivated short-term interests which has prevented a lack of coherent planning for the delivery of rolling new trains and infrastructure. ‘This is not new: it is a problem that has plagued the railway supply chain for many years. ‘The consequences of the UK losing its last remaining train manufacturing facility will not only be devastating for jobs and the local community it would be disastrous for passengers as the government will have to rely on imported stock which could be more expensive to build and maintain.’

Landslip and flood damage repaired Trains are running again on two routes after lines were closed because of landslips and floods. The line between Redhill and Tonbridge reopened this morning after Network Rail engineers completed emergency repairs at Bough Beech, near Edenbridge in Kent. Over the last two weeks, they have installed 91 sheet piles, which are 8m sheets of metal, and strengthened the embankment over a 100 metre section. Meanwhile, train services have returned to a branch line in North Wales, after engineers repaired flood damage in the Conwy valley. The line between Llandudno Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog was closed on Tuesday afternoon last week when flooding from the River Conwy washed away ballast near Dolgarrog. Finally, the line between Bradford and Ilkley is expected to reopen at the end of June, after work to repair a landslip restarted at Baildon after a delay caused by what Network Rail described as ‘complex’ issues at the site. Derby council leader describes ’ironic’ rail development Great British Railways has found a temporary headquarters in its future long-term home of Derby, on the Pride Park side of Derby station. However, the leader of the city’s council Baggy Shanker says although he is ‘proud’ his community is welcoming the GBR transition team today, he points to the continuing crisis at the Alstom works, and the fear that thousands of jobs could be lost if it closes. Derby has long celebrated its industrial status as a major ‘rail cluster’, but he added: ’It’s ironic that our biggest part of that rail cluster is facing closure at the time the headquarters opens.’ Dumfries upgrade progress A new £3.6 million footbridge and lifts have been installed at Dumfries, on the Glasgow & South Western line. Network Rail engineers worked through the night between Saturday and Sunday to install the steel structures, using two cranes weighing 500 and 110 tonnes to lift them into position. The footbridge was produced in Annan by M&S Engineering Ltd and work will now continue on completing the project, which should open this summer.

Network Rail has appointed Liam Sumpter as managing director for Network Rail in Scotland on a two-year secondment, following the news that Alex Hynes is joining the Department for Transport, where he is becoming director general rail services, again for two years. Liam starts work on Monday. Meanwhile, Scottish Rail Holdings has announced that ScotRail’s chief operating officer Joanne Maguire has been appointed interim managing director at the operator. She said: ‘Everyone at ScotRail continues to work hard to increase passenger numbers, grow revenue, and deliver value for money for the taxpayer. I am looking forward to continuing to play my part.’ Liam has 22 years of railway experience, having joined Railtrack in 2002, at a time when the failed company’s activities were in the process of being transferred to newly-created Network Rail. He was appointed as area director for the West Midlands & Chilterns in 2013, and then joined Arriva Rail North as regional director for three years, before returning to Network Rail as chief operating officer and most recently route director for Scotland. He said he was ‘delighted’ with his new opportunity. He continued: ‘Working as route director for the past five years has been deeply rewarding. We have a great team here in Scotland, and I am confident that together, we can continue to fulfil our main objective to run a reliable and safe railway. Chief executive Andrew Haines added: ‘As we enter our new five-year funding period, Scotland’s Railway will face many challenges and opportunities and I have every confidence that Liam will continue delivering on our commitments on train service performance, safety, climate action and affordability to the Scottish Government, our partners, customers and our staff. ‘Scotland’s Railway is already showing the rest of the UK the benefits of integrating track and train and I look forward to working with ScotRail, Scottish Rail Holdings and Transport Scotland to strengthen our alliance and deliver an even better service.’ ScotRail chairman and Scottish Rail Holdings chief executive David Lowrie said: ‘Joanne Maguire has been an outstanding leader of ScotRail over the past two years and I am pleased that she has accepted the role of interim managing director. I know she will continue to work with the team to build on our recent successes, including strong passenger growth, customer satisfaction, and punctuality. ‘We remain fully committed to the Alliance Agreement, which has delivered close collaborative working between ScotRail and Network Rail Scotland.’

The RMT has suspended a planned strike on CrossCountry this Saturday, after CrossCountry agreed to hold what the union described as ‘intensive talks’ in a new bid to resolve the dispute. The union said CrossCountry had refused to recognise it at all grades within the company, ‘despite written evidence to the contrary’. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: ‘With our members prepared to take strike action this weekend, CrossCountry management has seen the need to sit down with RMT to find a long-term resolution to this impasse. ‘We have agreed to suspend strike action and take up this opportunity. ‘But our strike mandate remains in place, so we will name new strike dates if that becomes necessary.’ Meanwhile, a further ASLEF walkout is planned on LNER on 20 April, with an overtime ban from 19 to 21 April, in a dispute over bargaining procedures. LNER said it had suspended bookings for 20 April while it assesses the likely effects of the strike on its services.

Patience in Derby with the Government over the plight of Alstom’s train building works in the city has now run out, according to the managing director of Marketing Derby. John Forkin revealed in a post on X last night that ‘A senior government representative pulled out of a meeting with Team Derby today so we will take the gloves off and open up a community-wide campaign to save UK train design and building.’ The identity of the government representative has not been revealed. Alstom UK and Ireland managing director Nick Crossfield has already warned that the process of declaring 1300 redundancies is under way, after the works in Litchurch Lane ran out of new contracts. There is also concern about another 700 jobs at the Hitachi plant in County Durham, while thousands of additional jobs in the railway supply chain are set to be lost if the factories close for good. Mr Crossfield has predicted that the fleet for HS2, which is to be supplied jointly by Alstom and Hitachi, may have to be built abroad, and that Britain could become the only country in the G7 to have no domestic train-building centre. Rail minister Huw Merriman wrote to industry stakeholders at the end of January, setting out plans for four rolling stock procurement contracts, but only one is a candidate for this year. He said the indicative contract award date for more than 600 vehicles for Southeastern is set for early 2025, but that the Department is ‘considering scope to bring forward to December 2024’. In his letter, Mr Merriman also said that ‘The Secretary of State has made clear his ambition to grow demand back and create a thriving railway, and to support the creation of high-quality jobs in a strong and resilient UK manufacturing sector,’ and went on to encourage train builders ‘to seek export opportunities’.

Hope Valley The £150 million project to increase capacity on the Hope Valley line between Manchester and Sheffield has been completed. Rail minister Huw Merriman is visiting Dore & Totley station today, where he will open a second platform, reversing British Rail cutbacks in the 1980s. The existing platform has also been lengthened, and new loops laid elsewhere on the route so that faster trains can pass slower ones. Strike Train services are seriously disrupted on c2c, Greater Anglia, Govia Thameslink Railway, Southeastern and South Western Railway today because of a 24-hour strike by ASLEF drivers in their continuing pay dispute. Many stations in south east England are closed. There has already been a new series of strikes at other operators, which were staged on Friday and Saturday. An associated ban on overtime and rest day working, which can also affect services, is continuing at most National Rail operators in England until tomorrow. A further ASLEF walkout is planned on LNER on 20 April, with an overtime ban from 19 to 21 April, in a separate dispute over bargaining procedures. Probe A major investigation of ground conditions by geological specialists is under way at Grand-over-Sands on the Cumbrian Coast line, where a Northern train was derailed on 22 March. No one was hurt, but the track was damaged. Engineers found a void in the ground 150m away from the crash site. The six coach train has now been removed by crane, and engineers have been drilling test bore holes to gather information about the conditions of the underlying soil and rock. Network Rail said the line is likely to be closed for the rest of April. Doors Heritage train operator West Coast Railways has enlisted the support of MPs in its continuing campaign to allow the use of hinged doors without full central locking on its fleets of Mk1 and Mk2 coaches. The steam-hauled Jacobite service between Fort William and Mallaig has been cancelled because the Office of Rail and Road refused to renew an exemption which had allowed the trains to run. WCR is asking rail minister Huw Merriman to intervene, while a petition opposing the ban has been launched by a shopkeeper in Mallaig.

Disruption is expected from today as ASLEF stages pay strikes at Avanti West Coast, East Midlands Railway, West Midlands Trains and CrossCountry. Further strikes have been called tomorrow at Chiltern Railways, GWR, LNER, Northern and TransPennine Express, and at c2c, Greater Anglia, Govia Thameslink Railway, Southeastern and South Western Railway (main line, depot drivers and Island Line) on Monday. ASLEF drivers are also refusing to work rest days from 4 to 6 April and from 8 to 9 April, which could lead to some services being changed or cancelled. However, strikes which had been set to go ahead on London Underground on 8 April and 4 May have been called off after progress with talks, although a separate walkout is still planned on LNER on 20 April, accompanied by an overtime ban from 19 to 21 April, in a dispute over bargaining procedures.

Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines is predicting that Control Period 7 will mean meeting the challenges of ‘climate change, train performance, industry revenue and reform’. Control Period 7 began on 1 April, and this five year budget is expected to be the last for Network Rail in its present form, because NR is set to become Great British Railways within the next two or three years. The six previous Control Periods go back to the launch of Railtrack on 1 April 1994, when it was separated from British Rail. It was then floated on the London Stock Exchange in May 1996. The following years did not prove to be happy ones. Railtrack struggled with the runaway budget of West Coast Modernisation, while several serious accidents occurred between 1997 and 2002. In the end, with its finances out of control, the company was placed in railway administration in October 2001 and replaced by ‘not for dividend’ Network Rail the following year. Changes to statistical rules meant that NR was officially classified as a government body in 2014. Control Period 6 began with widespread timetable failures in May 2018. These led to the inquiry by Keith Williams, who concluded that the railway lacked integration and recommended the creation of a ‘guiding mind’. Andrew Haines said: ‘The last five years has seen unprecedented change, not just at Network Rail, but across the world. Our railway kept essential workers and freight moving during the Covid pandemic, and of course we’re now faced with a different challenge – building passenger numbers back. ‘We are doing that through putting passengers first and getting closer to our customers. ‘We started that process right at the beginning of the period as Network Rail devolved into five regional business, themselves split into 14 routes, to better respond to, and work with, our train operating colleagues, the Welsh and Scottish Governments, combined and local authorities and funders. It put us in a strong position to respond to the enormous change that hit us with the pandemic, and gave us the flexibility to bounce back afterwards. ‘The creation of a new integrated rail body – Great British Railways – is designed to re-join track and train and aims to deliver a better, simpler, greener railway for all users. It will mark the end of Network Rail but that is something we look forward to in the interest of better serving our nations.’

Labour’s shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh is accusing the Government of ‘complacency, negligence and creating chaos for Britain’s rail manufacturing industry’. She has been visiting the Alstom works in Litchurch Lane Derby, where the factory is being mothballed because of a lack of orders for new trains.  Alstom has announced it will have to start preparing for 1,300 redundancies. Hitachi has also said that up to 700 jobs are at risk at its Newton Aycliffe works in County Durham. Alstom UK managing director Nick Crossfield has blamed the Government for ‘continued delay in providing us with certainty and clarity’. In a leaked letter to transport secretary Mark Harper, he said: ‘The ending of train manufacture at Derby Litchurch Lane after 147 years is an outcome we have been working extremely hard to avoid. ‘After 10 months of inconclusive discussions, we must now begin the arduous and disruptive task of demobilising manufacturing operations at Derby Litchurch Lane. ‘A production gap of this scale is totally unsustainable for Alstom and our supply chain to manage.’ Labour said it has called on ministers to ‘urgently explore all options’ to avoid job losses, including amending or bringing forward rolling stock contracts. Louise Haigh said: ‘Our rail manufacturing industry is in crisis. Manufacturers’ order books have dried up as the transport secretary has sat back and done nothing about it. Our rail industry needs certainty, stability and leadership. This government has only given them complacency, chaos and negligence, with avoidable job losses being the result. ‘The transport secretary has questions to answer on why he has failed to deliver on agreements to maintain a consistent order schedule for rail manufacturers. The sector urgently needs a long-term rolling stock strategy to provide stability and certainty. ‘Britain was the country that created the railways, but that legacy is being trashed by a Conservative Government that is content to oversee its managed decline.’ The Department for Transport has said that ‘rail manufacturing plays an important role in growing the UK economy and delivering better services for passengers. ‘The Government is committed to supporting the entire sector and we remain in close contact with Alstom to secure a sustainable future for rail manufacturing at Derby.’

Alstom winds down Alstom has given formal notice to the government that it has started mothballing its Derby site at Litchurch Lane after talks to obtain new work failed, at least in the shorter term. As a result thousands of jobs are at risk, including many in the supply chain. Alstom said the lack of a ‘meaningful workload’ until mid-2026 was ‘unsustainable’. Concerns also continue about the future of the Hitachi train-building plant in County Durham, again because orders for new trains have dried up. Strike warning Train operators in England are warning of severe disruption in the next few days as ASLEF drivers stage new strikes in their continuing dispute over pay. The walkouts are planned for Friday, Saturday and Monday at various operators, but services will be affected on other days by an overtime ban from Thursday to Saturday and again on Monday and Tuesday. Landslip line must close for two weeks The railway between Tonbridge and Redhill will be closed for at least two weeks, after an embankment which has caused problems in the past moved again. Services were cancelled over the Easter weekend while emergency repairs were carried out, but Network Rail said an assessment has revealed the need for more work.