Transportinfo.org.uk - today's transport news in the uk, hand picked for you each morning

Sunday, 31 March 2013

BBC News

• Elderly woman dies after Bangor RTCA woman in her 90s dies following a road traffic collision in Bangor, County Down.
• Air support goes in relief effortAll air support has now been withdrawn from the relief operation to animals stranded in the snow in Northern Ireland.

The Independent

• George Osborne takes first step on road to privatising Britain's highways The Government risks angering trades unions with plans to commercialise the running and repair of Britain's core roads network, a move likely to lead to full privatisation.

The Observer

• Nationalised rail is shunted into the sidings as Coalition tries to make sums add up on east coast linegovernment so keen to break with a recent past of boom and bust, it was striking to see history repeat itself on Britain's railways last week. If one route embodies the tottering arithmetic of the franchise system, it is the east coast mainline. In March 2005, then transport secretary Alistair Darling defended the decision to lease the London-to-Edinburgh route for £1.3bn to the doomed private operator GNER. "We've crawled over the figures over the last few weeks because we wanted to make sure that the bid actually stood up," he said.
• After 41 years, Dorset railway turns tables on Beeching cutsPassengers got a taste of things to come yesterday, riding the first service from Bournemouth to Corfe Castle and Swanage since 1972. Regular trains are scheduled to be back running on the reinstated three-mile route by spring 2015, creating 10 jobs and a further 40 indirectly, following a £1.47m grant to the volunteer-led Swanage Railway.

The Scotsman

• Edinburgh-Glasgow rail link faces three-year delaySCOTLAND’S flagship rail project faces being delayed by up to three years because of major engineering and construction obstacles to its scheduled completion in 2016.

The Mirror

• Ryanair in the dock over sexist calendar Consumer watchdogs in Spain say the Irish airline™s 2013 calendar exploits the female staff

Derby Telegraph

• Replace current bus park with a real bus stationI wish everyone would stop referring to the city's new central parking lot for buses as a "bus station". As I said in a previous letter, it is incapable of being one since it does not provide a facility for the satisfactory arrival and departure of buses.

London Evening Standard

• Beeching in reverse: historic train service from Bournemouth to Swanage is brought back to lifeBeeching must be spinning in his grave. In the week that saw the 50th anniversary of his report, a second rail line that was closed as a result has been reopened to mainline traffic.

East Anglian Daily Times

• Tendring: More than 100 cars removed from streets in crackdown on illegal salesALMOST 100 illegal and nuisance car sales have been driven off the streets of Tendring as part of a major crackdown.

Other Regional Press

• Inflated hopes for Bedfordshire airship manufacturerAN airship manufacturer which sold an aircraft to the US Army as part of a $500bn contract wants to buy it back after it the army stopped using it.
• Yacht found after coastguard search off Portland COASTGUARDS have been involved in a search for a missing yacht off Portland Bill.
• A cavalcade of classics OXFORD’S rich history of building cars was celebrated yesterday as a cavalcade of its finest vehicles rode through the city.
• Two-car crash causes delays on M40 outside Oxford A LAND Rover was involved in a collision with a pick-up truck on the hard shoulder of the M40 this afternoon.
• Lancashire road compensation payouts hit £1.3m record highHighways chiefs last year paid out more than a million pounds in compensation to drivers and pedestrians on Lancashire’s crumbling roads.
• How Beeching's rail axe affected Huddersfield's stationsONE line running into Huddersfield should have vanished under Beeching but miraculously survived.

Other News Sources

• QANTAS AND EMIRATES BEGIN HISTORIC PARTNERSHIPQantas and Emirates have marked the official start of their historic partnership, with the first Qantas flights departing from Sydney and Melbourne to London via the international hub of Dubai. ...
• Four invited to bid for North East Crossrail station upgradeBalfour Beatty, Costain, Hochtief and VolkerFitzpatrick have been invited to bid for a major contract to upgrade a number of stations on Crossrail’s North Eastern end.