Click here to listen to the latest rail news on Wednesday, 18th January 2023
InTheNews: The latest rail news on Wednesday, 18th January 2023
Rail union the RMT has followed in Aslef’s footsteps from Tuesday morning and announced two days of strikes in early February.
An article on City A.M. says train drivers working at 14 companies – including Govia Thameslink and C2C – said they will down tools on 1 and 3 February after rejecting an eight per cent pay increase over two years.
The walkout on 1 February – which will involve a few hundreds of RMT members – will coincide with the industrial action called by train drivers members of the union Aslef, while thousands of civil servants and teachers will walk out on 1 February.
Delivering commitments under inflationary pressures, rolling out Project Speed and moving to new renewable sources of power are among Network Rail’s priorities as it transitions into Control Period 7 (CP7), which starts in April 2024.
An article on New Civil Engineer says in December it was confirmed that the Department for Transport (DfT) will grant £27.5 billion to Network Rail for CP7, with the overall budget for the period being £44 billion once commercial income is accounted for.
Minutes from the meeting of Network Rail’s board on 20 October have recently been released and reveal that chief financial officer Jeremy Westlake provided a list of priorities for the rail operator as it transitions from CP6 into CP7.
HS2 is today celebrating another major milestone, with over 1,000 apprentice starts now confirmed on the UK’s flagship transport levelling up project.
The total number of new starters has reached 1,126, putting the company building Britain’s new railway on track to smash its target of creating 2,000 apprenticeships.
In September 2020 when construction began on the first phase of the project, linking the capital and the West Midlands, HS2 forecast that it would create 22,000 jobs in the coming years.
Its skilled workforce has now reached nearly 30,000, with thousands more jobs supported across the country in the wider supply chain.
A new-look Metro has been pictured on one of the world’s most scenic railway routes ahead of the first trains arriving in the North East in just a few weeks time.
An article on the Chronicle Live says the Stadler Class 555 train was photographed on the tracks of the Rigi Bahn, a mountain railway located between the two arms of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. It is the highest standard gauge railway in Europe at a height of 1,752 metres, though the Metro was shot much closer to sea level at a holding facility.
The train was awaiting preliminary testing and commissioning ahead of delivery to Velim in the Czech Republic for “dynamic” testing on a large track. The first of the new 46 Metro trains are expected to arrive in the North East in just a few weeks, ahead of further testing and driver training before entering passenger service in the autumn.
Photo credit: HS2 Ltd
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