Click here to listen to the latest rail news on Tuesday, 18th July 2023
InTheNews: The latest rail news on Tuesday, 18th July 2023
The government has launched the long-awaited study into options for running High Speed 2 (HS2) trains to Leeds city centre.
An article on the New Civil Engineer website says the “HS2 to Leeds” study, as it has come to be known, was a £100 million promise made in the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP), published by the Department for Transport (DfT) in November 2021.
It was a consolation for having cancelled the majority of the Eastern leg of HS2, which would have terminated in Leeds, and for focusing the development of Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) on the “core network” between Manchester and Liverpool.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and four other mayors are preparing to take legal action against train operators in an effort to stop the closure of just under 1,000 ticket offices.
An article on The Independent website says industry body Rail Delivery Group drew up plans to close the offices across the country and will move onto station concourses to assist passengers there.
This includes offices at some of the UK’s busiest stations, such as London Waterloo, London Euston, Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly.
Last week in the House of Commons, transport minister Huw Merriman faced stiff warnings over closing the offices but said: “99 per cent of all tickets can be purchased over a ticket machine or online.”
Some Eurostar passengers travelling from London can now avoid manual ticket and passport checks by UK officials due to a new facial verification system.
An article on the BBC website says the technology at St Pancras International station is aimed at reducing congestion and queues.
Enhanced post-Brexit checks by French border staff have increased the time it takes to process passengers at the station, the company said.
Northern is developing an app that will let its team of over 500 train presentation operatives know ‘to the minute’ when any given train on their network was last cleaned.
It is part of a new plan led approach to the ‘basic cleans’ that take place in carriages while trains are waiting at stations during passenger service.
Train presentation staff will be able to easier-identify which trains are most in need of attention, based on real time data, rather than tackling them on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis.
Photo credit: Northern
