Railnews Magazine Jan 2020 Back Issue

THE imminent publication of the Williams Rail Review has been marked by mounting criticism of the franchise system and protests over the January fare rises, and the first edition of Railnews in 2020 leads with reaction from around the industry.

Members of the RMT on South Western Railway are being balloted again over continuing their industrial action in the dispute over on-train staffing and the future role of guards, while the Rail Accident Investigation Branch has launched an inquiry into the death of a driver at Tyseley depot in Birmingham, and an interim report into the deaths of two track workers at Margam in south Wales on 3 July has concluded that the work team of three was not being protected by lookouts.

The Avanti West Coast franchise was officially launched on 9 December, a day after Virgin and Stagecoach had surrendered responsibility to FirstGroup and Trenitalia, but the Scottish Government is terminating the ScotRail franchise held by Abellio when the core contract ends on 31 March 2022. Abellio said it was ‘hugely disappointed’.

The launch of new timetables on 15 December was marred in some areas by staff shortages, although the problems did not seem to be caused by the new timetables themselves.

Work to upgrade the railway was completed in several parts of the country over the Christmas break. A total of 20,560 Network Rail staff worked on 386 projects.

The Prime Minister is facing another challenge only weeks after the General Election from some of his own MPs, who want him to ‘change course’ on HS2, while a new railway MP has been elected, because South Western Railway’s head of new trains Chris Loder is moving on to take his place in the House of Commons as Conservative MP for his home constituency of West Dorset