Railnews Magazine February 2017 Back Issue

Agreement with ASLEF in the driver-only operation dispute on Southern was announced at the TUC on 2 February, and this makes the lead story in the new edition of Railnews. The way is not entirely clear: the terms of the agreement were not revealed, while the RMT, which was not at the talks, remains in dispute over DOO on behalf of its conductor members.

Our regular feature Hot Topic considers whether a change of management at Southern would have helped, although the Department for Transport has denied reports that 'nationalisation' was being considered.

The management of franchises has also been the concern of the House of Commons Transport Committee, which has concluded in a new report that the present system is not sustainable in the longer term. Meanwhile, Transport Focus has published its latest passenger satisfaction figures which are down by 2 per cent, taking the country as a whole. Transport Focus added that in parts of London and the south east, timetables are little more than a 'work of fiction'.

The Vivarail D-Train project has lost local authority funding for now after a fire on board a test train at the end of December, but Vivarail has identified the cause of the problem and remains optimistic.

In other news, a commuter line was blocked for six days after a freight train derailment, electrification has reached its next stage between Corby and Kettering, while Network has awarded a £79 million contract for more electrification, in this case on the Shotts line in the Scottish central belt.

There has been a change of leader at the ScotRail Alliance after the sudden resignation of Phil Verster, who is moving to the East West rail link project. His replacement is Alex Hynes from Northern.
There has been speculation in the south west that GWR trains could start running through from Taunton to Minehead, using the West Somerset Railway, but in our major feature for February we ask if heritage railways can really play a transport function.