Railnews Magazine July 2019 Edizione posteriore

THE decision by Stagecoach Group not to bid for any more franchises under the present system is the lead story in Railnews for July, while what could be one of the last franchises to be awarded under the traditional system will be Abellio’s East Midlands Railway, starting on 18 August. We have a preview of how EMR will look.

The future of franchising is also being affected by the board room crisis at FirstGroup, where a crucial series of votes at a meeting of shareholders ruled out its departure from the rail business in Britain, at least for now, but the chairman has resigned.

In other news, a pioneering hydrogen fuel-celled train was demonstrated on 19 June. The train, dubbed HydroFLEX, had previously been a Class 319 electric multiple unit. Transport Scotland has warned Caledonian Sleeper that it faces a fine after the introduction of new trains on Highlander services was put back indefinitely, and a major blockade is due to start on 20 July on the West Coast Main Line. Network Rail will be upgrading track, cabling, overhead lines and signals between Crewe and Preston.

Still with Network Rail, five new regions went live on 24 June. They will be devolved to a total of 14 routes. Three new open access operations have been proposed, and one is expected to launch its services in the spring. The others depend on ORR approval.

The RMT staged five 24-hour strikes on South Western Railway during the third week of June, as the dispute over on-train staffing continued.

CAF has won a Transport for London contract to supply 43 trains for the Docklands Light Railway. They are due to enter service in 2023. Looking ahead, four bidders are competing to build the first trains for HS2. The contract is worth £2.75 billion.