National Rail services in England are badly disrupted again today, as ASLEF stages the first of its 24-hour strikes this week. Nearly all English operators are affected, with the exceptions of c2c and Merseyrail. Although domestic services run by ScotRail and Transport for Wales are not involved, there is disruption to trains in Scotland run by Avanti West Coast and LNER, and in Wales to trains run by GWR and, again, Avanti West Coast. Many routes have no service, and where trains can run they will be much less frequent than usual. Even these limited services will cease by around 18.00 at the latest. Today’s walkout is set to be followed by an RMT stoppage on Friday and by ASLEF’s second strike on Saturday. The disputes over pay and conditions appear to have reached deadlock again. The RMT has now gained the legal right to strike when it wishes between now and November, following a new ballot of its members, and the union has also gained a new mandate for industrial action on London Underground.

Job done ++ Normal train services between Glasgow Central and Edinburgh have been restored via Carstairs this morning, after three months of a major engineering possession to upgrade Carstairs Junction, modernising its layout and improving the platforms and lighting at Carstairs station. The £164 million project has cleared a bottleneck on the West Coast Main Line. Appointment ++ Craig Harrop has been appointed interim regional director for Northern in the North West. He took over yesterday. He has replaced Chris Jackson, who is joining the newly-renationalised TransPennine Express as interim managing director. Craig, who was born in Blackpool and lives in Manchester, was previously head of trains and stations at Northern. Scotland wins ++ A station on the west coast of Scotland has won the title of World Cup of Stations champion 2023. The competition was supported by the Rail Delivery Group and Community Rail Network. Wemyss Bay, 42km west of Glasgow, has an orrnate glass roof and a wide passageway down to the ferry terminal, and attracted 8403 votes Over 70,000 votes were cast for stations in 11 regions. The runners up were Denmark Hill with 7441 votes, and Leamington Spa with 3271.

The new station at Reading Green Park will open to passengers tomorrow, after the case for the station was first made nine years ago. The station, in the south of the Berkshire town, is the first to open in Reading since Reading West in 1906. The two-platform station on the line from Basingstoke will serve an existing business park and people living nearby, as well as the proposed Royal Elm Park development, which will provide more housing as well as business spaces. The station has a bus interchange, taxi rank, cycle spaces and two car parks. Reading Borough Council helped to obtain approvals for the project as well as funding and planning permission. It also managed the construction. A celebration event was held at the station yesterday, when a plaque was unveiled. Reading’s new Mayor Tony Page (pictured with GWR managing director Mark Hopwood) said: ‘Reading Green Park station will form an integral part of Reading’s ever-growing sustainable transport infrastructure. ‘The new multi-modal interchange will dramatically improve accessibility and connectivity to this important area of south Reading. The future expansion of the business park and residential areas on Green Park, as well as the proposed Royal Elm Park mixed use development, will all benefit from the new station. ‘It will also be another option for football fans heading to the stadium on match days, again taking the pressure off our busy local roads.’ Sir Alok Sharma is MP for Reading West. He said: ‘Having first made the case for Green Park station in Parliament in May 2014 and lobbied government ministers over the years, I am delighted that the station is now finally opening thanks to millions of pounds government funding. The new station is good news for passengers and increased connectivity and will provide a boost to the local economy.’ Reading Green Park is the first of three new Great Western Railway stations opening this year. The others will be Portway Park & Ride on the Severn Beach branch in Bristol and Marsh Barton on the Great Western main line in the southern suburbs of Exeter.

Grant ++ Rail minister Huw Merriman has announced a grant of £72 million to improve railways in north west England. He revealed the new funding during a visit to Manchester Victoria. The money will pay for a third platform at Salford Crescent, track improvements in north Manchester, and extra entrances and exits at Manchester Victoria, which is Manchester’s second largest station and also provides a direct interchange with trams to the city centre, Bury, Oldham and Rochdale. Scooters ++ Nearly all National Rail operators are banning e-scooters on their services, on the grounds that the batteries can catch fire. Greater Anglia head of safety, security and sustainability Matt Wakefield said: ‘We know that e-scooters have battery packs which vary greatly in quality. The decision has therefore been made to ban these items due to recent incidents elsewhere and the risks associated with them using faulty lithium batteries and catching fire.’ Reality plus ++ Transport for Wales has installed augmented reality maps of its six largest stations, to help passengers who are less confident about using trains. The new information is now available for Cardiff Central, Cardiff Queen Street, Newport, Chester, Shrewsbury and Pontypridd.

A Victorian viaduct in Oxfordshire which was closed on 3 April after engineers had reported dangerous movement of the structure, blocking the main line between Didcot Parkway and Oxford, is set to reopen on 10 June. The closure has interrupted busy passenger services run by Great Western Railway and CrossCountry, and also meant that 40 freight trains had to be diverted every day. Replacement buses have been running between Didcot and Oxford, some of them also calling at the three intermediate stations of Appleford, Culham and Radley. The failing abutment on the south bank of the River Thames has now been completely removed and work is underway to install solid foundations for a new structure. The repair of the 1856 bridge over the Thames has been described as ‘complex’ and ’challenging’, and required some heavy engineering: Twenty-four 15m steel piles have been driven into the bed of the river to create a solid platform for the temporary structure that is currently holding the weight of the viaduct. A 750-tonne crane has been working at the site, while 3000 cubic metres of material were removed from the embankment to make room for the new abutment. A further eight piles have been driven up to 20m into the embankment to give support. Network Rail capital delivery director Stuart Calvert said: ‘The progress we have made on what is an extremely challenging project is testament to the diligence and talent of our teams. ‘There is more hard work to come but we continue to operate round the clock to reopen the viaduct by 10 June. ‘We apologise for the continued disruption for railway users but we are doing everything we can to get the railway running again as quickly as possible.’

Reports in several newspapers which alleged that Great British Railways was being ‘scrapped’ by ministers have been dismissed by an influential rail networking group. The government had already denied claims that there would be no parliamentary time for the necessary legislation to create the industry’s new ‘guiding mind’ before the next General Election, saying that no decision has yet been made about the forthcoming Parliamentary agenda. Great British Railways is the core idea in the Williams-Shapps ‘Plan for Rail’, which was published in 2021 during Boris Johnson’s time as Prime Minister, but the plan lost momentum during various upheavals, including more than one change to the Conservative Party leadership. Even so, a Great British Railways Transition Team of some 300 people led by Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines is continuing to work on the foundations of the new structure, which is intended to see passenger operating concessions replacing the former franchises and include the infrastructure responsibilities now managed by Network Rail. The government has also chosen Derby as the headquarters of GBR after a competition which had attracted 42 towns and cities and was narrowed down to a shortlist of six. In spite of the claims in the press, the Derby-based Rail Forum has told its members in the rail supply chain that it has been testing the truth of the reports. It said: ‘Some of you may have seen speculation in the national press towards the end of last week suggesting that plans for GBR had been scrapped. Following conversations with DfT on Friday and the GBRTT yesterday we are reassured that nothing has changed and plans are still very much moving forwards. Finding space in the next session of Parliament for legislation will be a challenge but we are assured that this will be brought forward as soon as the timetable allows.’

Bad weather and ageing structures are costing Network Rail more, but it says it has been ‘working on plans to deliver the best railway it can for the amount of money available’. It has just announced its budget for Control Period 7 – the latest five-year budgeting plan which starts in April next year. The total allocated in England and Wales is £44 billion, which is £1.8 billion more than in the current Control Period. Figures for Scotland depend on the Scottish Government’s calculations, and are due to be published in the summer. Funding to enhance the railway is no longer included in the CP budgets, and Network Rail pointed out that the government has committed to spending £96 billion on the Integrated Rail Plan. The shopping list for the £44 billion includes investment of £1.6 billion in earthworks and drainage, which are increasingly put under pressure by climate change, as well as the fact that most of the railway was built in Victorian times and cannot be expected to last indefinitely without remedial work. Network Rail said its aim is ‘a more punctual and reliable railway than today’, and improving services for passengers and freight users. Other investment includes ‘next generation’ signalling, renewing lifts and escalators, improving lighting and passenger information systems, reducing emissions and ‘making every penny count’ by achieving efficiencies of £3.4 billion. Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines said: ‘As we look to the next five years, the government’s commitment to invest £44 billion in the operations, maintenance and renewal of England and Wales’s railway is a clear indication of the strong economic value rail brings to Britain. ‘Our plan for CP7 is ambitious, focused on our passengers and customers and reflects the current complexities and challenges facing the industry. There will no doubt be obstacles ahead and I look forward to working collaboratively with the sector to deliver this plan, reshape the industry and build a railway that is fit for the future.’

More than half the length of routes served by former passenger franchises will have been returned to public ownership next month, when Caledonian Sleeper will become the seventh operator to be renationalised over the past five years. LNER took over from the failed Virgin Trains East Coast on 24 June 2018, and has since been followed by Northern, Southeastern and, on 28 May, TransPennine Express. ScotRail and Transport for Wales are also now controlled by their devolved governments. After Caledonian Sleeper is transferred from Serco to the Scottish Government on 25 June, 13,093 route kilometres will be worked by seven nationalised operators, four of which are based in England.  The ten companies still in the private sector, operating under government contracts, will cover 11,671 route kilometres, or 47.1 per cent of National Rail. Railnews has published this analysis as speculation grows that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak does not see railway reform and the creation of Great British Railways as a priority in the next session of Parliament, which will be the last before a General Election. If so, time is unlikely to be found for the necessary legislation to allow GBR to take over most of the responsibilities of the Department for Transport, including awarding tightly controlled operating contracts, and also absorbing Network Rail. The proposed changes were set out in detail in the 2021 Plan for Rail by Keith Williams and transport secretary Grant Shapps, when Boris Johnson was prime minister. Derby was named as the headquarters of GBR as recently as March this year. The Williams-Shapps proposals did not exclude the private sector from operating the passenger railway, but set out plans to award operating concessions rather than the old franchises. There is very little commercial risk under concession arrangements, but the operator’s income is mainly restricted to an agreed management fee, while most details, such as fares, timetables and corporate identity, are outside the operator’s control. Concessions are already used on several Transport for London services, including the Elizabeth Line, and also on some tram systems outside London. The speculation about GBR first appeared in the Times last night, but the Department for Transport has declined to confirm the claims, saying: ‘The Government remains fully committed to reforming our railways and will introduce legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows, having already taken numerous steps towards reform.’

The RMT has called another 24-hour strike on 2 June, using the powers it obtained after the most recent ballot of its members which approved further industrial action over the next six months. The union said it had found the Rail Delivery Group’s previous offer and associated conditions ‘unacceptable’ and despite contact between the parties since the strike on 13 May, ‘no new proposals have been formulated for the RMT to consider’. The RDG, which has turned down RMT calls for an industry summit over the dispute, responded: ‘In recent discussions with the RMT we have continued to stand by the fair, industry level dispute resolution proposal agreed line by line with their negotiating team, which would have resolved this dispute and given our lowest paid staff a rise of up to 13 per cent. ‘By calling more strike action the RMT leadership have chosen to prolong this dispute without ever giving their members a chance to have a say on their own offer. Instead, they will be subject to yet more lost pay through industrial action, customers will suffer more disruption, and the industry will continue to suffer huge damage.’ The Department for Transport added: ‘It’s extremely disappointing that for the second time in a month, RMT has decided to call strikes on the same weekend as ASLEF strikes, going out of their way to make travelling by train to the FA Cup final, Epsom Derby and a number of music concerts more difficult for thousands of people. ‘The transport secretary and the rail minister have facilitated talks and there continues to be a fair and reasonable offer on the table, yet the RMT’s executive committee’s actions will see their members lose money through strikes, rather than having the chance to vote on the offer and bring this dispute to an end.’ The RMT has renewed its call for the Rail Delivery Group to make a better offer. General secretary Mick Lynch said: ‘The government is once again not allowing the Rail Delivery Group to make an improved offer that we can consider. ‘Therefore, we have to pursue our industrial campaign to win a negotiated settlement on jobs, pay and conditions. ’Ministers cannot just wish this dispute away. ‘They underestimate the strength of feeling our members who have just given us a new six month strike mandate, continue to support the campaign and the action and are determined to see this through until we get an acceptable resolution.  ‘The government now needs to unlock the RDG and allow them to make an offer that can be put to a referendum of our members.’

The union which represents most train drivers says it has received ‘significant’ pay offers from ScotRail and Transport for Wales which it is now putting out to a members’ ballot, with a recommendation to accept. ASLEF is comparing this progress with the situation in England, where it is about to stage two more strikes affecting 13 train operators on 31 May and 3 June. It has also called an overtime ban this week until Saturday and again on 1 June. The union said the offer from ScotRail is a one-year deal, with a 5 per cent rise from £55,264 to £58,027. Transport Wales is offering 8.9 per cent backdated to 1 April, taking drivers to £63,200. Pay would rise again by a further 7.9 per cent on 1 April 2024, taking drivers to £68,300, followed by a further 4.1 per cent in December 2024 to £71,000, as well as one more increase on 1 April 2025 equivalent to the Retail Price Index in February 2025. ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan said: ‘Subject to the decision of our members – and because, as a trade union, we are a very democratic organisation, it is their decision – we have successfully negotiated significant pay increases for our members with the governments of the devolved nations. ‘Sadly, this is in stark contrast with the response from the Westminster government. The train companies with which we are in dispute, because they have not offered their drivers an increase in salary since 2019, and the Tory government that stands behind them do not appear to be interested in getting a resolution that serves passengers and businesses as well as staff and will help to get Britain’s railways back on track. ‘This is further proof that ASLEF is willing to negotiate in good faith and modernise our railway. And further proof that the failure of negotiations with the TOCs in England is the responsibility of Mark Harper, the DfT, and the RDG. That has been laid bare for all to see.’ ScotRail service delivery director David Simpson told the Guardian: ‘I’m pleased that the ASLEF executive committee has approved this strong pay offer and has recommended that its members vote to accept it.’