Reports say transport secretary Mark Harper is set to announce that plans to create a ‘guiding mind’ for the railway industry are back on track, although the timetable for setting up Great British Railways has slipped. There had been fears that GBR, which had been recommended by former British Airways chief executive Keith Williams, had been set aside. His report into the railway industry’s structure was commissioned after the May 2018 timetable changes had proved chaotic. When he had investigated, he concluded that the major changes planned for that month on Northern and Thameslink had resulted in confusion because ‘nobody took charge’. His report, which was published in conjunction with transport secretary Grant Shapps in 2021, had explained: ‘Services across the north and south east of England were disrupted for many weeks after the late delivery of infrastructure improvements by Network Rail, miscalculations by both it and operators in preparing timetable changes, and a failure of accountability and oversight throughout the process, led to a collapse in the national timetable.’ The answer was seen to be a new ‘guiding mind’, but progress towards creating GBR, which will need new legislation, had apparently stalled during the high-level confusion in government itself last year, which involved the departure of Boris Johnson as prime minister, followed by the brief appointment of Liz Truss before she was also forced to resign, in favour of Rishi Sunak. Grant Shapps was dislodged as transport secretary during the period of uncertainty in Downing Street, and it is his successor Mark Harper who is expected to say tomorrow that GBR is starting to move forward again. A competition for towns that wish to host the headquarters of GBR had also been delayed. If the plans have remained essentially unchanged, GBR will absorb Network Rail and take responsibility for awarding passenger operating contracts in England, which have replaced the former franchises. The part played by the Department for Transport will be greatly reduced. Mark Harper is also expected to reveal major changes to ticketing, which are thought to include the abolition of return tickets in favour of ‘single leg’ alternatives, following trials on LNER.

Airport station ++ Trains are calling at the new station serving Inverness Airport from today, after the Scottish Government’s transport minister Jenny Gilruth opened the station yesterday. The station at Dalcross is part of a £42 million Scottish Government investment which has also paid for a 950m passing loop to improve capacity north of Inverness on the line towards Aberdeen. Transport Scotland said the new station will also improve transport links to the new town of Tornagrain and to the growing Inverness Airport Business Park. Welsh upgrade study ++ The Welsh Government and the Department for Transport have announced a £2.7 million study into improving the main line in South Wales, and adding five more stations to attract people away from the congested M4. Although the DfT has not named the potential station sites, the contenders could be Newport Road (Cardiff), Cardiff Parkway (St Mellons), Newport West, Newport East (Somerton), Llanwern and Magor. Cardiff Parkway is already planned. Wales secretary David T.C. Davies said: ‘Good transport connections between south Wales and western England are essential for the economy in Wales, enabling businesses to grow and flourish. I’m pleased to work with the Welsh Government on plans that could have a huge impact on the many thousands of people who use the transport network in south Wales every day.‘ Free TfL travel ++ The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has agreed to provide free travel to the cleaning staff employed by firms who have contracts with Transport for London. Their union the RMT had been campaigning for years on behalf of the 5,800 cleaners, and RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: ‘This is another step in the right direction by the Mayor of London and we’re calling on him to extend it to all TfL sub-contracted workers. Sadiq Khan’s welcome action stands in stark contrast to the Tories who earlier in the week forced legislation through the House of Commons that would remove these workers’ right to strike. Instead of attacking cleaners, the Tories should be following the Mayor’s lead and ensuring all rail cleaners have free travel.’ 

Vandals sentenced ++ Members of a graffiti gang who repeatedly sprayed trains at Northern’s Heaton depot in Newcastle have been sentenced, although the trial was delayed by the Covid pandemic. Adam Smith, 28, of Hedgeley Road in Hebburn, was described as the ‘ringleader’, and he has been jailed for 18 months by Newcastle Crown Court. His accomplices were Jordan Shone, 26, of Lumley Court in Hebburn, Mark Marshall, 28, of Greenbank in Jarrow and Colin Bell, 47, of St Vincent Street in South Shields. They all received suspended sentences between nine and 18 months and were also ordered to undertake unpaid work. A further offender, David McGuire, 28, of Winskill Road in Simonside, South Shields, was given a community order and ordered to undertake 18 months’ unpaid work. The five all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause criminal damage between January 2018 and June 2019. Northern said it welcomed the sentences, and that the damage had cost thousands of pounds. Passenger landmark ++ More than 100 million journeys have been made on the Elizabeth Line since the central section opened in May last year. Transport for London said the number of passengers had reached 600,000 a day, and that the new route is ‘on track to break even by the end of the 2023/24 financial year’. TfL also said it will introduce ‘the final version’ of the Elizabeth Line timetable as planned on 21 May, and that headways between Paddington and Whitechapel will then be shortened to 2.5 mins in the peaks. Leaves battle ++ The Rail Safety and Standards Board is collaborating with the University of Sheffield to use artificial intelligence to help predict slippery rails. The new project is investigating how more detailed information on local conditions can be used to tackle the seasonal challenge associated with ‘leaves on the line’. Low adhesion track is a serious problem, which costs £350 million a year and can threaten safety if a train fails to stop as intended. The RSSB said temperature, humidity and the presence of leaves or other contaminants can all affect the adhesion between wheels and rails.

The first of two 24-hour walkouts by drivers this week has closed most of the passenger railway system in Britain. Trains are running where their operators are not in dispute with the unions, so that services are normal on c2c, Caledonian Sleeper, Merseyrail, South Western Railway (apart from Island Line) and Transport for Wales. ScotRail drivers are also booking on as usual, although there is disruption between Ladybank and Kirkcaldy because of a signal fault. There are limited services on GWR, Greater Anglia (including Stansted Express) and LNER, but not all stations are being served and services are starting later and finishing earlier than usual. Urban services such as London Overground, London Underground, Docklands Light Railway, Tyne & Wear Metro and Merseyrail are unaffected, while Eurostar and other open access operators are also working normally. Members of the drivers’ union ASLEF are staging pickets at stations and depots, while the relatively few driver members of the RMT are also joining the walkouts. ASLEF had rejected the most recent pay proposal on 17 January, after a meeting with the new rail minister Huw Merriman eight days earlier. General secretary Mick Whelan said: ‘It’s now clear to our members, and to the public, that this was never about reform or modernisation but an attempt to get hundreds of millions of pounds of productivity for a 20 per cent pay cut while taking away any hope of the union having any say in the future. Irreparable harm has been done to the integrity of the negotiating process and the future ability to negotiate an appropriate way forward, but we make ourselves available anyway. ‘Not only is the offer a real-terms pay cut, with inflation running north of 10 per cent, but it came with so many conditions attached that it was clearly unacceptable. They want to rip up our terms and conditions in return for a real-terms pay cut. It was clearly a rushed offer, made just before our meeting with the minister, and not one, it seems to me, that was designed to be accepted.’ The Rail Delivery Group said: ‘Having made an initial offer which would have taken average driver salaries from £60,000 to nearly £65,000, we had hoped the ASLEF leadership would engage constructively to move talks forward, rather than staging more unnecessary strikes. We can only apologise for the disruption.’ A second walkout has been called for Friday.

Olympics ++ The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has confirmed that he wants London to host the 2040 Olympic Games, which would trigger more transport improvements. He told MyLondon: ‘We're working with colleagues to get a bid explored. 2032 and 2036 are a done deal. The attraction of a deal for 2040 for London is it would be the greenest Olympics ever – watch this space.’ It is the second time that the Mayor has revealed his ambition. He told ITV last year during a trip to the USA that the cost ‘wouldn’t be humongous’ because the capital was equipped to host the Olympics in 2012, when the Docklands Light Railway was extended. Strikes ++ Southeastern is the latest operator to warn that strikes by drivers tomorrow and Friday will mean that no trains will run on its network. Southeastern’s operations and safety director Scott Brightwell said: ’If this strike action goes ahead, we’re sorry, but there’ll be no Southeastern train services at all.’ Other operators who do not expect to provide any service during the strikes are Avanti West Coast, Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Govia Thameslink Railway, Heathrow Express, Island Line, West Midlands Trains, Northern and TransPennine Express. Mainland South Western Railway services are expected to keep running because SWR said its drivers are not taking part in the walkouts. However, SWR services through the Hook area will continue to be reduced because two of the four lines are still closed while Network Rail continues to repair a major landslip.  Viaduct ++ The last of 292 concrete piles that will form the foundations for the longest railway bridge in Britain have been installed at the site of HS2’s Colne Valley Viaduct. Once complete, the 3.4km bridge will carry HS2 over a series of lakes and waterways near Hillingdon on the north-western outskirts of London. Deck assembly began last year, and HS2 said more than 500 metres of the structure is now complete. When finished, the viaduct will take the title of ‘longest railway bridge’ from the Tay Bridge on the east coast of Scotland, which is 3.26km long.

Information gap ++ The Railway Industry Association in Scotland has said it is disappointed that the Scottish Government has postponed publishing its plans for funding railway infrastructure north of the border for a second time. Publication of the Control Period 7 High-Level Output Specification and Statement of Funds Available between April 2024 and March 2029 was due in November. The publication date was then moved to 27 January, but this has also been missed. RIA said supply chain companies needed clarity about future spending so that they can plan their businesses. New station ++ Demolition gangs have moved in at the site of the future Willenhall station in the West Midlands, and work is also under way stablising the old mine workings under the site, which must be done before construction can begin. Three disused buildings which formerly dealt with waste are being removed. The demolition follows the move of the recycling business which formerly occupied the site off Rose Hill. The new station in Walsall is part of the £55 million project to restore passenger trains between Willenhall and Darlaston. Rugby specials ++ GWR will be running 17 extra trains to Cardiff Central on Saturday for the Six Nations rugby match against Ireland. GWR said it expects to provide a full Saturday timetable following industrial action on Friday, which will mean 38 trains will arrive in total, providing almost 30,000 seats for fans.

Tram depot ++ Work has started on the expansion of the West Midlands Metro tram depot at Wednesbury to accommodate a larger fleet. The additional trams are needed because the network is growing. The depot’s capacity will be more than doubled, while maintenance areas and workshops will be modernised and extended. Transport for West Midlands has estimated that 150 jobs will be created at the larger depot. No trains yet ++ West Midlands Trains has warned that restoring trains rather than rail replacement buses on the Marston Vale line between Bletchley and Bedford is proving difficult. The Vivarail Class 230 units on the line were withdrawn at the beginning of December after Vivarail had appointed administrators, because of fears that maintenance would be a problem. WMT subsidiary London Northwestern has issued a Business Update, which says it has been ‘working hard to explore all options’, but that introducing another class of unit raises issues of compatibility, training and effects on capacity on the West Coast Main Line. Stakeholders are set to be briefed further on 6 February.

Overcrowding ++ There were scenes of confusion and crowding at London Bridge during last night’s rush hour, because all trains had been stopped after a trespasser was seen on the line. Passengers complained of panic and long queues for escalators. In a Twitter message, Southeastern managing director Steve Wight said: ‘This is the second time that crowd control has been required at London Bridge recently. The last occasion was when a points failure caused disruption. Tonight's disruption was due to an emergency call stopping all trains due to a trespasser. A review will be held.’ Southeastern has already been under fire for changing its rush hour timetables last month, which mean fewer direct services run to and from Cannon Street. Drivers’ strikes ++ Special strike day timetables are set to be published by National Rail tomorrow, as ASLEF drivers prepare to strike on two days next week. The walkouts will affect 14 train operators in England on 1 and 3 February, and the RMT has also called out its driver members on the same days. The Rail Delivery Group said many lines will have no services, and where trains do run they will start later and finish earlier. Services on the days after each strike may be disrupted for a while, because some trains will have been left out of position, and in some cases trains may also be affected during the evenings before each walkout. The RDG has estimated that about 30 per cent of the usual services will run during the strikes. New trains ++ Transport for Wales’ £800 million fleet of Class 197 units is being officially launched by the Welsh Government’s minister for rural affairs and north Wales Lesley Griffiths, at a ceremony in Llandudno. Built in Newport by CAF, the 77 trains will be used on many routes. They have leather seats, air conditioning, wider doors and information screens. The first 197s entered service on the Conwy Valley line last month, but today’s ceremony marks the formal launch.

Eurostar has warned that Brexit formalities are threatening its business, although it is holding out hopes that a new digital immigration system will simplify the procedure in due course. Chief executive Gwendoline Cazenave said more rigorous border controls, combined with a shortage of security staff and the effects of the pandemic, meant that passenger numbers had fallen by 30 per cent. Speaking at an event in Brussels to launch the new combined business which has been formed by the merger of Eurostar and Thalys, she said: ‘The thing is now we are not able to run the same transport offer we had before in 2019, because of bottlenecks in stations. We have a main issue in Eurostar terminals because of the new boarding conditions between the UK and EU, because of the impact of Covid, because of staff in the stations.’ She also unwilling to say if the international trains will ever call at Ebbsfleet and Ashford again, pointing out that the big cities like London, Amsterdam, Paris and Brussels are Eurostar’s main traffic objectives. She explained: ‘These are the main cities, these are the main markets we are working for, which is our main role, I would say.’ The Brussels event also saw the unveiling of Eurostar’s new brand, which will be carried by Eurostar and Thalys trains. Eurostar said it had chosen ‘an iconic star as its symbol and new logo inspired by l’Etoile du Nord, the original train service linking Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam and as a tribute to the first Eurostar logo’.

Line reopens ++ The railway between Hurst Green and East Grinstead in Surrey is set to reopen this morning, after it had been blocked by a landslip last Thursday. Network Rail engineers and BAM Nuttall have been working continuously to repair the line after a 10 metre stretch of a seven metre high embankment slipped away from the railway, around 800m from Lingfield in the up direction. Cracks also spread six metres on either side of the slip, leading to fears it could get worse if action wasn’t taken immediately. Engineers have installed a steel wall, made of 44 10 metre steel piles, which will stabilise and support the embankment. The engineers have also used 50,000 tonnes of ballast. Meanwhile, work is continuing at the site of another landslip, near Basingstoke on the South Western Main Line, which occurred about ten days ago. South Western Railway was able to restore a limited service yesterday, although down trains are still unable to call at Hook. Station ++ Work has started on building one of the stations on the Levenmouth line, which is being restored by the Scottish Government in a £116 million project. Cameron Bridge, just off the A915, will have two 196m platforms and serve Methilhill as well as Cameron Bridge. Network Rail will equip the new station with 125 parking spaces, a bus stop and footpaths. A new bridge will also be built over the river to provide a direct connection with Methilhill. Network Rail said the work will take about 10 months, and that the Levenmouth Rail Link should open in the spring of 2024. New trains ++ Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram has been celebrating the introduction of new Stadler-built trains on the region’s local network. The first Class 777 unit carried guests on an inaugural trip from Liverpool Central to Kirkby yesterday morning. The Mayor said: ‘This is a massive day, not just for our area, but for the entire country, as we launch the UK’s first publicly-owned trains in a generation into service for the first time. Alongside the work we’re doing on buses, active travel and integrated ticketing, we’re bringing our transport network into the 21st century.’ Viaduct ++ The first V-shaped pier for 300m viaduct that will carry high speed trains to the new Curzon Street HS2 station in Birmingham has been completed. The pier, five metres tall, is the first to be installed for the ‘Curzon No. 3 Viaduct’, which will be the final approach to the seven platform station in the city centre, near the present station at Moor Street. A total 30 piers will be needed, and their heights will vary between five and six metres above ground level. They will include four steel tripod piers to span the Digbeth Branch Canal. Transpennine leader ++ A new managing director has been appointed to lead the Transpennine Route Upgrade between Manchester and York. Neil Holm said: ‘There is an exciting future for rail in the North of England, and I am proud to lead a programme of thousands of brilliant people that will transform rail travel across the North in the coming years. Work is well underway.’ Before joining Network Rail, Neil was programme director for the construction of aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales.