Rail passengers who play music out loud on their phones or computers, or make loudspeaker calls, are the targets of a new campaign from today to get them to turn it down. Railway byelaws already allow staff to remove such passengers, who can also be fined up to £1000, but

Sir John Kingman has been named as the first Chair of Great British Railways. Sir John will begin his duties immediately. The Government said he will play a ‘critical role’ in shaping the design of the new organisation, continuing the integration of train and track operations, as the Railways Bill continues

Passengers have made more than 2,000,000 journeys on the Northumberland Line, less than two years after it opened. To celebrate the occasion, Northern staff have been handing out millionaire’s shortbread, made by a bakery in Ashington. The 29km former freight line was reopened to passengers in December 2024. Six stations were built

The headquarters of Great British Railways in Derby will be in the city centre. Work will begin at Becketwell, a brownfield site, early in the New Year. It is set to be completed by spring 2029. The shadow GBR has been using temporary quarters at Pride Park, and the possible site

CrossCountry will lease eight more Class 221 Voyagers from early next year. Six of the units have been cascaded from Avanti West Coast, and two have been released by Grand Central. The transfers have been arranged by agreements between Arriva, the Department for Transport and rolling stock company Beacon. CrossCountry managing director

One casualty of privatisation was probably unexpected – the names of stations, writes Sim Harris. Private sector operators could choose whatever names they liked, and so could Network Rail, which persists in referring to ‘Edinburgh Waverley’ when the national ticketing database says ‘Edinburgh’. This database also feeds timetables, so that the official

The Office of Rail and Road has launched a consultation on a draft Retail Code of Practice that is intended to create a level playing field for sellers of tickets. At the moment, 14 separate operators run their own websites and apps, and these will be replaced by Great British Railways.

The rail regulator has turned down two more open access applications, on the grounds that there is not enough capacity on the West Coast Main Line. The Office of Rail and Road had been considering proposals for four return services between London Euston and Wrexham General from the Wrexham, Shropshire &

Another open access application has reached the end of the line, with the news that Grand Central has abandoned its proposal to run services from Cleethorpes, saying that the plan is ‘no longer commercially viable’. Grand Central’s application was launched on 21 March last year, and this set out a route

Over 400 thousand journeys have been made at Cambridge South station since it opened 100 days ago, dramatically improving the way people travel to and from Europe’s largest biomedical campus. The new station is heading towards annual patronage figures of 1.6 million journeys, well on the way towards the 1.8 million