Railnews Magazine February 2021 Back Issue

THE financial crisis at Eurostar caused by Covid-19 restrictions leads Railnews for February, after transport secretary Grant Shapps told MPs that it is ‘not our company to rescue’. Eurostar’s CEO has warned ‘catastrophe is possible’.

Still with the pandemic, seventeen extra GWR trains are calling at Newbury Racecourse each day to serve the new Covid-19 vaccination centre which has been set up there, while a group of Network Rail workers volunteered to help set up another large-scale vaccination centre in Devon during January.

HS2 has had a turbulent start to 2021. HS2 chairman Allan Cook has resigned several months early, and he will leave at the end of July. Anti-HS2 protestors who have tunnelled under Euston Square Gardens have been defying bailiffs trying to remove them, and the controversy continues over the future of the eastern leg to Leeds.

Councils which have been campaigning for the future East West Rail between Oxford and Cambridge are describing a DfT funding announcement as ‘a milestone worth celebrating’ and the transport commissioner for London has revealed new and ambitious targets for the opening of Crossrail, but many existing railways were battered in January by savage winter weather. Heavy rain and snow caused flooding and triggered several landslips.

In business news, the takeover of Canadian Bombardier by French rolling stock builder Alstom was completed as expected on 29 January, but ‘flexible’ season tickets valid for fewer than five days a week must wait until the pandemic eases, said rail minister Chris Heaton-Harris.

Scientists working with Network Rail have recruited the latest technology to help survey all the natural habitats which exist alongside more than 15,000km of railway route.

Finally, one ScotRail engineer has been determined not to let lockdown restrictions add to his weight. Instead, Kevin Robertson has resolved to run 5km every day.