Alstom Derby produces last train The threatened Alstom train building works in Derby is set to complete its last train tomorrow, and managing director Nick Crossfield has warned that little progress has been made during talks with government ministers about the future of the plant. However, rail minister Huw Merriman published a list of four potential rolling stock contracts last month, one of which could be awarded in December. Avanti performance A meeting of the Transport for the North Board in Leeds today is expected to approve a Strategic Transport Plan for the north of England which could boost region’s economy by £118 billion by 2050. As well as longer term plans, the meeting will discuss ‘more immediate’ priorities, including the performance of Avanti West Coast and how it could be improved. Members will also consider the implications of the draft Rail Reform Bill, which was published a month ago. New station, new tram lines Transport for Greater Manchester has submitted a business case for a new station at Golborne in the borough of Wigan to the Government, which would need an investment of £31.8 million. Proposals have also been unveiled to extend the Metrolink tram network to Stockport, Middleton, Heywood, Bolton and the Atom Valley regeneration zone. Mayor Andy Burnham said a decision could be made this summer, and that work is under way on preparing a ‘watertight’ business case.

Alex Hynes moves Scotland’s Railway managing director Alex Hynes has been appointed director general, rail services, at the Department for Transport on a two-year secondment. His appointment follows a reorganisation of departments within the DfT, where a new integrated Rail Infrastructure and Services Delivery Group is replacing most of the Passenger Services and Rail Infrastructure Groups, paving the way for Great British Railways. Battery trains A former Vivarail Class 230 unit has started running extended battery trials with Great Western Railway on the Greenford branch in west London. The unit recharges within 3.5 minutes when it pauses at West Ealing, the line’s southern terminus. The test train will not carry passengers, and is running between normal booked services. Contactless launch A new tap-and-go system which accepts contactless smartcards has been announced for the Liverpool City Region. The move is part of plans to invest almost £10 million in public transport ticketing, as part of the Mayor’s commitment to provide a ‘London-style’ transport system.

The Railway Industry Association has criticised the continuing absence of an updated Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline, which the Government promised to publish annually but which last appeared more than four years ago. RIA points out that today marks four years, four months, four weeks and four days since a version of the Plan last appeared, accompanied by a promise of 12-month updates. As recently as last month, rail minister Huw Merriman was quoted as saying that he would give a ‘definitive view’ on the future of the Plan ‘in a very short timescale’. RIA says that a ‘quartet’ milestone has been reached, and that it has four questions: which rail schemes are under business plan development, what business plan stage have the schemes reached, what funding has been approved, and what are the potential timescales for delivery? The Government is facing a new deadline in October, when the Procurement Act becomes active, requiring the publication of pipelines and contract notices. In fact, the Government’s own ‘Construction Playbook’ from 2022 states that ‘One of the most important things we can do is to prepare, maintain and publish comprehensive pipelines of current and future government contracts and commercial activity.’ RIA chief executive Darren Caplan said: ‘Given the budget for the RNEP is roughly £10 billion over five years, there should be a clear and visible plan for how this money will be spent. ‘Piecemeal announcements have been made on individual projects but there is no comprehensive view on future enhancement plans for the railway. The Government should set out which rail schemes within the RNEP, the new Network North proposals, and the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands, will go ahead. It should also make clear if it intends to change, scrap or replace the RNEP process. Rail suppliers need clarity on which enhancement projects will proceed to deliver best value to passengers, freight and taxpayers in the long-term.’

Trains are set to start running again on part of the line between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury, which has been blocked since 8 March by a landslip near Oakengates. Network Rail said more than 5,000 tonnes of material had slipped beneath a 50-metre section of the railway after persistent heavy rain over the winter months weakened the earthwork. It added that engineers have been ‘working around the clock’ since last week to clear the site to allow access for the materials and equipment needed to repair the embankment. Althougn no passenger trains have run on the route over the past week, West Midlands Railway is hoping to restore a limited service from Wolverhampton on Monday, which would serve the stations east of the landslip. This would run every two hours from Wolverhampton as far as Shifnal, calling at Bilbrook, Codsall, Albrighton and Cosford. WMR pointed out that the complexity of designing timetables and the fact that the relevant traincrew depot is in Shrewsbury while the rolling stock depot is in Birmingham makes an emergency service difficult to arrange, but that it is ’working hard’ to serve the eastern part of the line soon. Avanti West Coast trains from London to Shrewsbury will continue to terminate at Wolverhampton for the time being, although in any case these services are being withdrawn from the start of the summer timetable in June. Transport for Wales trains will not be able to serve stations east of Shrewsbury until the line is fully reopen again, and rail replacement buses are running. Network Rail infrastructure director Adam Checkley apologised to passengers and described the scale of repairs as ‘challenging’, involving over 12,000 tonnes of material. He continued: ‘We’re currently aiming to fully reopen the line by Easter.’

Alstom has published proposals to run a new open access service between London, Shropshire and Wrexham, echoing the former Wrexham and Shropshire operation which closed in January 2011. Alstom, which is one of the world’s major builders of rolling stock, has formed a partnership with SLC Rail and is submitting a formal application to the Office of Rail and Road today. Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway services would start from Wrexham General and call at Gobowen, Shrewsbury, Telford Central, Wolverhampton, Darlaston, Walsall, Coleshill Parkway, Nuneaton, Milton Keynes Central and London Euston. The trains would avoid central Birmingham by using the freight line through Sutton Park between Wolverhampton and Water Orton. If it went ahead, WSMR would be the second open access operator on the West Coast Main Line, because it is only a week since the ORR approved an application from Grand Union Trains to run four trains a day between London Euston and Stirling, starting next year. The Government has made it clear that it is in favour of open access. Rail minister Huw Merriman said: ‘These exciting proposals could see better connections for communities across North Wales and the Midlands, including direct services to London from Shrewsbury, Telford and Wrexham. Competition delivers choice for passengers and drives up standards, which is why we continue to work with industry to help make the most of open access rail.’ Like Grand Union, WSMR could be launched next year. It is proposing to run five trains a day on Mondays to Saturdays, and four on Sundays. Alstom said the new company would serve a catchment area of about 1.5 million people outside London and employ about 50 people. So far Alstom has not revealed what rolling stock could be used, but the Sutton Park route to Wolverhampton is not electrified, although that does not rule out bi-mode trains, which would also need to use a non-electric mode between Wolverhampton and Wrexham. Alstom’s managing director for the UK and Ireland Nick Crossfield said: ‘As the country’s leading supplier of rolling stock and train services, it makes perfect sense that we now move into operating our own fleet to serve passengers directly. Having been part of the fabric of UK rail for two centuries, we’re excited to enter this new era as an open access operator. ‘Alstom is also committed to embedding sustainability into every element of our organisation, and WSMR will help drive a modal shift from road to rail by offering a greener alternative for travellers across England and Wales.’ SLC Rail managing director Ian Walters added: ‘From the Welsh borders to the Midlands, our routes will forge new connections, linking overlooked regions of England and Wales with direct services to and from London. Passengers will benefit from more competitive fares and new technology to simplify ticket purchasing for our new services. Delighting the customer will be at the forefront of what we do; we want WSMR passengers to experience a new excellence in customer service onboard our intercity trains. ‘Our proposal will support sustainable housing growth, nurture communities, and unite business, leisure, and commerce along the corridor. This will enhance economies and bring a positive impact to both communities and the environment – and we can’t wait to get started.’

A campaign has been launched to encourage young people to travel by train, with climate change at the heart of the message. The advertising, which is entitled A Greener Future, is led by Network Rail in collaboration with the Rail Delivery Group and the Campaign for Better Transport, and it sets out to explain to ‘Generation Z’ why just one journey by train ‘can make a significant and positive impact on the environment’, when compared to car travel. The points being made include that an average train journey causes little more than a fifth of the carbon emissions which would be the result of an equivalent car trip. Network Rail engineering and safety director Martin Frobisher said: ‘Rail is one of the greenest forms of transport, and we are working hard to make it even greener, by investing in electrification, renewable energy, and taking care of the rich variety of wildlife and plants that live along the thousands of miles of land that surrounds the railway. ‘We hope that this campaign will inspire young people that travelling by rail is part of the solution. That just one journey by train, rather than by car, can make a huge difference in helping protect the planet.’ Rail Delivery Group chief executive officer Jacqueline Starr added: ‘Travelling by train is a simple way to make a greener choice. When looking at the sustainability of different modes of transport our railways are hard to beat, and it’s one of the great benefits of making rail your first choice. We are committed to helping our railways to grow, with more people taking the train over other modes of transport we can all play our part one journey at a time.’ Silviya Barrett, who is director of policy and campaigns at the Campaign for Better Transport, said: ‘Taking the train is already the greenest way to travel and with more rail lines being electrified, it’s only getting greener. Choosing the train is one of the simplest things you can do to minimise your carbon footprint and make a difference, one journey at a time.’ As one of Britain’s biggest landowners, Network Rail is responsible for looking after the rich biodiversity alongside the railways, and employs full-time ecologists who work with contractors and in-house staff to manage lineside vegetation to protect trains and also encourage wildlife. Examples that can be seen along the lineside include woodpiles, ‘bug hotels’ and strategic planting. The campaign ‘A Greener Future’ will be seen on social media, digital platforms and outdoor advertising until next month.

Derailment The Rail Accident Investigation Branch has launched an inquiry after a train struck trees near Thetford which had fallen across the track. The Greater Anglia train from London Liverpool Street to Norwich was travelling at 83 mph (134 km/h) during the evening of 6 February this year. The leading bogie left the rails and the train continued for about 680 metres before the driver’s emergency brake application brought it to a stand. One of the 31 passengers was slightly hurt. Tickets Northern has announced an ambition ‘to make buying a ticket as easy as it’s possible to be’. A new head of retail will start work at Northern next month. Nick Clarke, who replaces Jason Wade after he became Northern’s regional director for the North East in February, has joined from Arriva, and will be responsible for the way ticket sales are managed. He will also lead Northern’s efforts to reduce fraudulent travel. Tickets 2The Office of Rail and Road says third-party ticket retailers have ‘responded positively’ to its call for an end to ‘drip pricing’, when fees and charges associated with a purchase are not made clear at the beginning of the transaction. The ORR had written to seven retailers, and several have made ‘interim’ improvements ahead of ‘more substantial’ changes to follow. Two have yet to make any changes, but are set to do so later this year. The ORR said it would monitor progress, and will be holding the companies to account. Open access FirstGroup has reported that its open access operators are doing well, and that their success has pushed rail trading ‘slightly ahead of the Group’s expectations’. In a pre-close trading update, First says this is due to ‘continued strong demand, effective yield management, and the settlement of certain one-off infrastructure and other claims’. First has submitted an application for open access services between London and Sheffield, as part of Hull Trains, and is also hoping to extend some Lumo services from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

Shropshire landslip Train services between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury have been suspended and replaced by buses until around the end of the month, because of a landslip near Oakengates station in Telford. The operators affected are Transport for Wales, West Midlands Railway and Avanti West Coast. Network Rail said it had closed the line between Wellington and Oakengates on Friday so that engineers could assess a failed embankment. They discovered that 5,000 tonnes of material had slipped beneath a 50 metre section of railway, after persistent heavy rain over the past few months had weakened the structure. Network Rail added that before structural repairs can begin it must clear vegetation from the embankment, which will make the scale of the problem clearer. Once this work has been completed, a full plan for repairs will be confirmed. Northern announces Northumberland fares Tickets on the new Northumberland Line will be available from £1 when it opens this summer. Northern said the maximum off-peak single fare from Ashington to Newcastle will be under £3. Waterloo scheme Network Rail and the London Borough of Lambeth have unveiled plans to improve Waterloo station. The proposals include a redesigned northern concourse and a new concourse south of the station. The South Bank area will gain 1,900 square metres of green space, and hundreds of new trees. Bus and taxi interchanges will also be improved. Network Rail said the propoals will ‘help realise Waterloo’s full potential as a connected, safe, and thriving net-zero neighbourhood with an integrated world-class station at its heart’.  Signals switched on Trains are running again today on the Cornish Main Line and several branches in the county, as new colour light signals are switched on. Three mechanical signal boxes at Truro, Par and Lostwithiel have been abolished, and control transferred to Exeter, although existing boxes have been retained on the main line at Liskeard, Roskear, St Erth and Penzance, and on the Newquay branch at St Blazey and Goonbarrow. The work has taken 13 days so far, in the third stage of modernisation in the region. The focus now moves to Devon, where the main line between Exeter St David’s and Plymouth will be closed on 16 and 17 March, and between Totnes and Plymouth from 18 to 21 March.

The Labour Party has criticised delays to rail reforms which have been highlighted in a new report from the National Audit Office, and has repeated its pledge to fully renationalise the remaining private sector passenger operators if it is elected. The NAO has concluded that the railway’s performance ‘is not good enough and has not been for some time’. It points out that the Department for Transport knows what the problems are, but has not been able to use this knowledge effectively, and that the level of railway subsidies is ‘unsustainable’. A further problem has been that ‘the government’s legislative priorities have changed’, and this lack of consistency has also made things more dfficult for the DfT, as when a new Act to reform the railways was postponed. Although a draft Rail Reform Bill has now been published, the NAO warns that key reforms are now postponed until the next session of Parliament. This is unlikely to take place before the next General Election, while the ‘DfT is not yet set up to secure value for money from its work to reform rail’. New data from the Office of Rail and Road has revealed that cancellations were at 4.9 per cent between October and December last year, which was the highest level since these figures were first recorded, ten years ago. Labour’s shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said: ‘It is clear that under the Conservatives our rail services are being run into the ground. Cancellations are soaring, fewer and fewer trains are turning up on time, and fares have once again been hiked, leaving long-suffering commuters literally paying more for less. ’Under the Tories rail reform has stalled and we are on a train to nowhere. Labour will end this cycle of failure by bringing rail franchises back into public ownership as contracts expire, and putting passengers at the heart of every decision.’ The DfT responded: ‘The £3.1 billion of subsidies the NAO refers to are a result of external pressures, including the challenges of post-Covid passenger recovery, not related to rail reform savings. ‘We have laid out a clear plan for the industry’s future under Great British Railways in our recently published draft bill and we are now pressing ahead with improvements that will benefit millions of customers like expanding Pay As You Go ticketing, piloting simpler fares, and announcing a target for rail freight growth.’

Open access services are set to run between London and Stirling next year, after the Office of Rail and Road approved an application for four trains a day from Grand Union Trains, whose managing director is Ian Yeowart. The ORR has already approved new Grand Union services between Carmarthen and London Paddington. The regulator calculated that Grand Union will abstract revenue worth £24.4 million a year from existing operators, mainly Avanti West Coast. Established WCML operators like AWC have DfT contracts and currently pay all their earnings to the government, but the ORR said this abstraction would be offset by airline passengers who are attracted to the new services, and that ‘forecast abstraction of £24.4m for this application is within the range of previous applications we have approved’. Grand Union Trains will introduce four new return services a day between London Euston and Stirling. Trains will call at Milton Keynes Central, Nuneaton, Crewe, Preston, Carlisle, Lockerbie, Motherwell, Whifflet, Greenfaulds and Larbert. Larbert, Greenfaulds and Whifflet will gain their first direct services to London. Mr Yeowart has been promoting open access operation for more than 20 years. He set up the original Grand Central and tried, unsuccessfully, to launch cross-Pennine services between Newcastle and Manchester in 2003. Although these were rejected by the ORR a year later, the first GC services started running between London and Sunderland in 2007. The new application has met resistance from some operators on the West Coast Main Line. The ORR said Avanti West Coast and West Midlands Trains had opposed the application, saying that it would abstract ‘unacceptable levels of revenue’ from existing operators. They were also concerned about capacity and performance. Grand Union is likely to use off-lease Class 221 Voyagers or Class 222 Meridians, and Avanti added that it was unhappy about the ‘perpetuation of diesel operation’ on the WCML. Transport for Greater Manchester was also doubtful. Although TfGM agreed that the choice of diesel was ‘prudent’, so that services could start sooner, it was ‘regrettable from a carbon neutrality and air quality perspective’. However, the ORR said ‘we do not view it would be appropriate to turn down new passenger services on the basis of diesel traction, especially on a route which has known electricity power supply constraints. Additionally, the proposal provides opportunities for travellers switching from air to rail travel, which would provide sustainability benefits.’ Stephanie Tobyn, who is the ORR’s director for strategy, policy and reform, said: ’Our decision helps increase services for passengers and boost competition on Britain’s railway network. By providing more trains serving new destinations, open access operators offer passengers more choice in the origin and price of their journey.’ Speaking before the application had been approved, Grand Union’s director of marketing and development David Prescott had said: ‘Each station has been chosen because of the benefits and opportunities it brings. Grand Union’s service will open up tourism opportunities, improve business options, provide new leisure travel opportunities and help reduce people’s reliance on air travel. ‘We will be able to provide people a faster and more comfortable journey and eliminate the need to change trains by avoiding Glasgow and Edinburgh, meaning people will be able to complete the journey from Stirling to London in just over five and a half hours.’