Railnews Magazine January 2025 Back Issue

A‘fundamental reset’ for HS2 is the lead story in the first edition of Railnews for 2025. The project’s new CEO Mark Wild has warned that HS2 is in ‘a completely unacceptable position’, which cannot be corrected before next year.

In other news, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch is to retire in the spring, the Prime Minister has supported calls for Eurostar to serve Ashford again, freezing weather and heavy rain or snow disrupted trains, and the public consultation over plans for the next stages of East West Rail restarted on 7 January.

Fraudulent travel is also in the news, because c2c recovered almost £600,000 from passengers who tried to travel without the right ticket last year.

Careless lorry drivers have been the subject of a new appeal from Network Rail, after one low bridge in Birmingham was hit three times in one week. Drivers are being urged to check the heights of their vehicles, pay attention to road signs and not to trust sat-navs.

The prospects for more open access services may have changed, after transport secretary Heidi Alexander wrote to the Office of Rail and Road, expressing concerns about limitations on capacity and the amount open access operators contribute to use the track.

There was more encouraging news for the passenger railway as a whole, however, because rail revenues rose by 11 per cent in the three months from July to September. Meanwhile, passengers on Tyne & Wear Metro were able to try the first of their new Stadler-built trains in December.

January also saw the launch of Railway 200, which began on New Year’s day with an international ‘whistle-off’. This month’s feature continues the theme with an illustrated account of how the railway communicated with its customers and staff over two centuries.

Railnews for January is out now.