Transport secretary Grant Shapps and his cabinet colleagues are being accused of ‘picking a fight’ with the rail unions, as more walkouts are threatened. Scottish transport minister Jenny Gilruth (pictured) said a meeting with Grant Shapps and rail minister Wendy Morton was cancelled last week at short notice. It was rescheduled

THE government has confirmed that the upgrade to ETCS on the East Coast Main Line is to go ahead, with a budget of more than £1 billion. The digital system has been under test for some time on part of the Hertford Loop, controlled from laboratories at Hitchin. ETCS will

A 48-hour strike by London Tramlink drivers today and tomorrow is going to mean a greatly reduced service, with no trams running from East Croydon to New Addington or Elmers End. Transport for London warned that trams which do run will be busier than usual. About 150 members of ASLEF

Train services are returning to normal today after almost a week of industrial action, while RMT general secretary Mick Lynch has told transport secretary Grant Shapps to ‘tone down the rhetoric and get on with his job, which is to settle this dispute’. Mick Lynch was on a picket line at

Talks are continuing between the RMT, Network Rail and the train operators, but tomorrow's third national walkout is set to go ahead, once again reducing train services to about a fifth and also closing many routes for the day. There have already been two national 24-hour strikes this week, and RMT

Train services are being reduced to emergency timetables on main lines for a second day after a new round of talks between the RMT, Network Rail and train operating companies failed to make progress. The dispute, over jobs and pay, means that today’s strike will disrupt services in every part of

Fresh talks are reported to have been arranged for today with the RMT in a fresh bid to end the dispute which is reducing rail services to a fifth of their normal level on three days this week. Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines has defended plans to reduce the number

Thousands of trains have been cancelled and many stations closed as the result of the RMT’s first of three national strikes, which started at midnight. An emergency service is running on some main lines between 07.30 and 18.30, but last trains will often run much earlier than this and there are

Talks have been taking place over the weekend in a bid to avert national rail strikes this week, but without any progress towards a settlement in the RMT dispute over pay, conditions and jobs. Both sides are accusing the other of failing to co-operate. The RMT has claimed that operators were

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has spoken out against the impending rail strikes during a visit to Hornsey depot in north London. The depot is run by Siemens, and used to maintain the large fleets of Siemens units which run on Govia Thameslink Railway. Mr Shapps has declined to hold direct talks with