In The News | 13th June 2022 | Latest Rail News

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InTheNews: The latest rail news on Monday, 13th June 2022

Striking rail workers may find themselves banned from overtime under plans being drawn up by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

An article in the Daily Mail says that alongside industry chiefs, Mr Shapps is devising ways to prevent striking workers from claiming overtime – a perk they are usually entitled to when getting rail services back on track after a walkout.

The Transport Secretary is said to be determined that workers won’t be able to ‘milk the system’ after ‘inflicting misery’ through industrial action, The Telegraph reports.

A Department for Transport source said: “The traditional mistake during strike is that you pay staff to work overtime putting right the damage they’ve done. We won’t be making that mistake this time. Striking will result in a full and absolute loss of pay.”

Union barons yesterday threatened to take the Government to court over plans to allow agency workers to be brought in to limit the impact of rail strikes.

Glasgow’s Anderston railway station has reopened following a major refurbishment.

An article on Glasgow World says it had been closed for 13 weeks as part of a wider, £32 million investment to improve punctuality and reliability on services between Rutherglen and the Exhibition Centre.

Extensive repairs were completed on the tunnels, bridges and tracks during that time, with the station work designed to create a better experience for passengers.

Train cancellations have risen to near-record levels with one in every 25 services failing to run even before the threat of mass strike actions threatens to shut down the network this month.

An article in the i newspaper says in the first three months of 2022, train cancellations rose to 3.9 per cent, capping a steady increase in delays and cancellations across the rail network.

HS2 has started construction at the site of its first innovative ‘green tunnel’, designed to blend the high speed railway into the landscape and reduce disruption for communities.

Unlike a normal underground tunnel, the one-and-a-half mile (2.5km) Chipping Warden green tunnel in Northamptonshire is being built on the surface using a pioneering off-site manufacturing approach to speed up construction and improve efficiency.

This approach will see more than five thousand giant concrete tunnel segments made in a factory in Derbyshire before being assembled on site. The completed tunnel will then be covered by earth, with trees, shrubs and hedgerows planted to fit in with the surrounding countryside.

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Photo credit: HS2 Ltd

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