Railnews Magazine October 2025 Back Issue

The Department for Transport says Govia Thameslink Railway will be renationalised next year on 31 May, with Chiltern Railways and Great Western Railway to follow later in 2026.

GWR was fined £1 million and more than £78,000 in costs on 3 October after admitting health and safety offences. Bethan Roper, 28, had died in December 2018 after she placed her head outside a train window and was struck by a branch.

Leaf fall season has arrived, and technology which uses dry ice pellets to clear away fallen leaves is being tried by Northern. Storm Amy caused serious disruption over the first weekend of October, with Scottish railways particularly badly hit, and the Conwy Valley line will be closed for most of October so that Network Rail can remove unstable trees.

Two men aged 18 and 19 have been charged in connection with last year’s cyber attack on Transport for London systems, while detectives at British Transport Police launched a murder investigation after a boy died at Seaford station on 10 September.

Beaulieu Park station in north Chelmsford is due to open before the end of this month, and Okehampton Interchange is set to open next summer.

The first train arrived at the rebuilt platforms at Huddersfield on the morning of 29 September, while the lines through Darlington were being closed over the weekend of 11 and 12 October to allow the latest stage in the £140 million project to enlarge the station. A Caledonian Sleeper service will start calling at Birmingham International from January.

The RMT was considering an improved pay offer for Underground staff at the end of September, following strikes earlier in the month, and the first of a new fleet of trains for the Docklands Light Railway has gone into service.

Railnews for October is out now.