Railnews Magazine Jan-18 Back Issue

PROTESTS over January’s fare rise were accompanied by reports that the long standing convention of using the Retail Prices Index to set each year’s increases is under review at the Department for Transport, and this story leads Railnews for January, alongside the resignation of former transport secretary Lord Adonis from the infrastructure commission over the early termination of the Virgin Trains East Coast franchise and the government’s management of Brexit.

In other news, the launch of the West Midlands Trains franchise was marked by delays caused by snow in much of the new operator’s area, Railnews has been told that East West Rail will be a ‘diesel commuter line’ without electrification, and a war of words has broken out between the DfT and a local council over a further delay in opening Kenilworth station.

Elsewhere, the last part of the modernised London Bridge station opened on 2 January, completing a five-year £1 billion project, electric trains have started running between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh but they were existing Siemens Class 380s rather than new Hitachi Class 385s, and five train operators were set to be affected by RMT strikes in the second week of January.

The title of ‘best entry’ in the Railway Heritage Awards went to Network Rail Scotland for ‘dramatic changes’ at Wemyss Bay, and new figures reveal that the problem of cable theft is still growing and incidents are at their highest for five years, in spite of recent changes in the law.

In Metro news, the final report into the Croydon tram crash has said the driver of the tram which overturned, killing seven people, may have been in a ‘microsleep’.

This month’s feature considers the outlook for the Isle of Wight’s sometimes threatened railways, and in Hot Topic, mindful of the early ending of East Coast, we ask if franchising has a future.