Click here to listen to the latest rail news on Thursday, 16th November 2023
InTheNews: The latest rail news on Thursday, 16th November 2023
Commuters are to face yet more strike misery, after the train drivers union ASLEF announced plans for a series of one day strikes and an overtime ban in December
An article on City A.M. says train drivers will walk-out at each rail operating company for 24 hours between Saturday 2 and Friday 8 December, the union said.
Aslef members will refuse to work overtime from Friday December 1 to Saturday 9 December. The union said the industrial action would “ratchet up the pressure” on rail operators and the government as it looks for a pay rise for its drivers.
The government argues its current pay offer would bring the average salary of a train driver to £65,000 over a four-day working week.
More than 1,300 jobs have been put at risk at the UK’s largest rail assembly factory.
An article on the BBC website says Alstom is consulting on job losses at its Litchurch Lane site in Derby, which has no confirmed workload beyond the first quarter of 2024.
Work on trains for HS2 is scheduled to start at the plant in late 2026, but there is a gap in orders from early next year.
The cost of the HS2 rail link from London to Birmingham has jumped again.
An article on the i news website says the rail minister, Huw Merriman, said HS2’s management had increased the upper estimate for the project to £57 billion in 2019 prices.
The latest estimate comes after Rishi Sunak cancelled part of the second phase of the railway from Birmingham to Manchester, citing the spiralling costs of the project and a post-pandemic fall in rail passenger numbers.
Torquay’s new railway station has been given the go-ahead – despite having no car park. On-street parking spaces near the new station at Edginswell – already in demand – will have to cope with any extra traffic the new station creates.
An article on Devon Live says Torbay Council’s planning committee heard that the new station could even lead to a fall in demand for parking as people used the train to get to nearby businesses and Torbay Hospital rather than driving.
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