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

Saturday, 06 July 2019

Mail Online

• HS2 bosses make £30million renting out homes near the new railway line they encouraged owners to sellHS2 has been making millions of pounds a year in rent from homes it had pressured owners to sell. The company behind the £56billion high-speed rail plan has made almost £30million this way in the past five years, according to figures obtained by the Daily Mail.

London Evening Standard

• Sadiq Khan to investigate TfL 'withholding vital information' from Croydon tram crash probeMayor of London Sadiq Khan will investigate Transport for London for withholding

Newcastle Evening Chronicle

• Metro bosses will boost driver numbers in a bid to stop last minute cancellationsMetro bosses have unveiled a "transformational" plan to end a train driver shortage that is causing regular cancellations.

Wolverhampton Express and Star

• Dudley Very Light Rail centre hits funding problemsCouncil bosses say they are confident they will not lose out on more than £5 million of funding for an innovative light rail facility.

Yorkshire Post

• ‘Staggering’ timing of East Coast Main Line closure condemned by Yorkshire event organisersCALLS are growing for transport chiefs to be compelled to take greater account of spectators attending major sporting and cultural events when closing major railways for engineering upgrades, The Yorkshire Post can exclusively reveal.
• MP wants heads banging together over closure furore after key East Coast Main Line rail body fails to meet for eight monthsTHE next Transport Secretary is being urged by a Yorkshire MP to “bang heads together” at the body that was set up to oversee improvements to services and represent the interests of passengers on the East Coast Main Line.

Other Regional Press

• Why your trains go rogue at nightTrains are widely regarded as one of the most reliable modes of transport out there. Granted, they might not always - or often, run on time, but they can be relied upon to travel from A to B.
• Mayor James Palmer wants CrossCountry franchise stripped for refusing more trains from ManeaThe mayor said his attempts to convince the rail operator to run a direct service have fallen on deaf ears, despite his claim it would increase the economic opportunities in Manea and add another option for affordable housing within commuting distance of Cambridge.
• Rail depot gets green signal as new trains are on their way to the eastGreater Anglia has been granted planning permission to build a workshop to maintain its new suburban trains on the outskirts of Harwich.
• This is why you'll never know how long the train barriers will be down in LincolnA clever idea has been rejected by Network Rail

Train Operators

• Full speed ahead for Greater Anglia’s Bombardier trainsBombardier is building 111 trains for Greater Anglia which will run into London Liverpool Street from Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.

New Civil Engineer

• HS2 Old Oak station construction delayed by legal battleConstruction on High Speed 2’s Old Oak Common station will not begin until September at the very earliest, after a judge dismissed HS2 Ltd’s request to hear its application for lifting the automatic suspension placed on the contract before the court’s summer recess.

Rail Advent

• GB Railfrieght assist in reopening site near Heathrow AirportGB Railfreight has announced that it has assisted in the reopening of a rail site at Link Park Heathrow, just to the north of Heathrow Airport.

Rail Technology Magazine

• £80m Plymouth station refurbishment plan revealedMasterplans for a major refurbishment of Plymouth’s railway station have been revealed. Plymouth City Council approved a £26m funding package in 2018, working with Great Western Railway (GWR), Network Rail and the University of Plymouth to develop a large-scale regeneration project...
• Network Rail award drone repair contractsNetwork Rail has handed contracts totalling £2.6m to several firms to supply, maintain and repair its drones. The company has a fleet of 24 drones to assist maintenance teams in surveying the railways for repairs. Supplying the equipment will be Heliguy and Buzzflyer, servicing will be...
• The challenge of completing CrossrailWith a new plan now in place to deliver Crossrail, Hedley Ayres, National Audit Office manager, major projects and programmes, takes a look at how things went wrong. As has been extensively reported, Crossrail is around two years late and, if all its £17.6bn of funding is used, could end...
• Sellafield director joins Crossrail independent advisory panelThe supply chain director of Sellafield, the nuclear fuel processing and decommissioning site, Martin Chown, is joining the Advisory Board at Crossrail. The government announced the appointment earlier today, saying that he will use his expertise working for Sellafield and the Institution of...