Lifting hundreds of miles of roadworks and shortening rail engineering work are among measures aimed at avoiding Christmas travel chaos unveiled by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. The closure of London King’s Cross station on Christmas Eve for major engineering work has been postponed from the afternoon until the end of service,

A SHUFFLE of senior train operator posts has been announced by FirstGroup. A new managing director has been appointed at South Western Railway. She is Claire Mann, whose previous experience goes back 20 years and includes the post of director at the Docklands Light Railway and other posts at Arriva Trains

THE next chief constable of British Transport Police has been named as Lucy D’Orsi, who is presently the deputy assistant commissioner for Specialist Operations at the Metropolitan Police. The first woman to lead BTP, she will join in the New Year, shortly before the current chief Paul Crowther retires in February. Lucy

THE purchase of Bombardier by Alstom is set to be completed within two months. Alstom said ‘all necessary regulatory approvals’ have now been received, which means the transaction can go ahead on 29 January. The price for the acquisition of 100 per cent of Bombardier Transportation shares will be €5.8bn to €6.2bn,

THE Rail Accident Investigation Branch has reported that the derailment of a train of cement wagons at Sheffield which disrupted services for almost a week was caused by defective track fastenings which allowed the gauge to spread. The accident happened at about 02.45 on 11 November, when 16 of the 34

Credit: ORR Berney Arms in Norfolk was Britain’s least used railway station in the past year, the Office of Rail and Road said. Just 42 passengers used the isolated station between April 2019 and March 2020. This was down 90% on the previous 12 months as the lines serving the station were closed

THE government has agreed a further tranche of support for Crossrail, after there had been warnings that the project would have to be mothballed because Transport for London has a continuing cash problem and cannot pay for further work itself. The Greater London Authority may now borrow up to £825 million

ONCE again the Department for Transport has issued a list of favoured railway schemes which have each won a modest slice of a fund to help pay for developing them. Also once again reports of this generosity have been littered with the ‘B’ word. Sim Harris suggests that this word

Peak ticket restrictions will be suspended on Avanti West Coast trains over the festive period, slashing the price of many journeys. Passengers travelling on weekdays with off-peak tickets are usually prohibited from boarding trains before around 9.30am or between 3pm and 7pm. But the operator has announced that this rule will not

THE RMT is calling for an urgent meeting with Network chairman Sir Peter Hendy to discuss Christmas transport plans, which he has been preparing. Sir Peter has a history of co-ordinating major transport arrangements. In 2012 he was in charge of organising the successful transport strategy for the London Olympics. RMT general