Click here to listen to the latest rail news on Tuesday, 17th May 2022
InTheNews: The latest rail news on Tuesday, 17th May 2022
ScotRail could cause “industrial carnage” with plans to axe up to a third of services during an ongoing pay dispute, a union has warned.
An article on the BBC website says rail workers’ union RMT said the newly nationalised operator was proposing “a 30 per cent cut in trains” for several months.
Services have been hit by a shortage of drivers after the Aslef union rejected a 2.2 per cent pay rise and balloted drivers over strike action.
ScotRail said it would announce its plans in the coming days.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has re-opened the Bank branch of the Northern line after a 17-week planned closure.
The closure enabled around 550 construction staff to work around the clock to finish constructing a brand-new Northern line tunnel and passenger concourse at Bank Underground station.
A new, wider southbound Northern line platform has also opened at Bank station – all key parts of this vital capacity upgrade project.
Maintaining the railway sector without government reform could cost up to £6 billion of taxpayers’ money a year, warned a report published today.
An article on City A.M. says an analysis by UK think tank Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) argued that without a complete makeover, the network will fall into a decline and underinvestment scenario that could force the government to either increase income tax or cut services to revive it.
“The pandemic fundamentally changed the nature of rail in the UK,” said the report’s author Tony Lodge.
A new safety scheme has launched which will fit more than 15,000 of Britain’s freight locomotives and wagons with technology that enables the condition of wheelsets to be monitored in real-time.
Defective or worn wheelsets can cause broken rails and damage to wagons if left untreated and can lead to safety issues and delays on the railway for both passenger and freight trains.
The two-year project, part of the Freight Safety Improvement Portfolio’s (FSIP’s) £22 million fund, will see 30,000 radio frequency identification (RFID) tags being fitted to both sides of freight locomotives and wagons.
Photo credit: TfL, Copyright Caroline Teo
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