Click here to listen to the latest rail news on Friday, 21st April 2023
InTheNews: The latest rail news on Friday, 21st April 2023
Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove MP joined managing director for rolling stock and customer services at Siemens Mobility Sambit Banerjee, along with local apprentices to officially open the new Components Facility at the site in Goole.
Set to create an additional 30 new skilled jobs in the area in the next year, the £7 million facility is located at the heart of the Siemens Mobility rail village in Goole.
The facility will maintain gearboxes, traction motors and other parts for train and tram fleets across the UK, helping to keep trains from Scotland to the South Coast running.
Great Western Railway (GWR), Eversholt Rail, and Hitachi Rail have announced an extension of their maintenance partnership, which will bring millions of pounds in investment in the UK supply chain and improve train service reliability for GWR customers.
Hitachi Rail’s successful and innovative train maintenance has earned the company a contract extension, worth over £300 million, to maintain the GWR West of England fleet of 36 Class 802 Intercity Express Trains until 2028.
The decision to extend the contract was based on Hitachi Rail’s previous success, which has seen the fleet increase its reliability performance by over 94 per cent since its introduction.
Wales’ railway has been “pretty bleak for a while”, the Labour politician in charge has admitted.
The article on the BBC website says Lee Waters said that the experience of using the nationalised Transport for Wales (TfW) service could be “awful” with overcrowding and cancellations.
He said it will get better as the South Wales Metro work progresses, but suggested it was difficult to get the message across.
The transport minister spoke at a rail industry event in Cardiff on Thursday.
Rail passengers travelling to and from London this coming weekend (22 and 23 April) are being reminded to plan their journeys in advance because planned engineering which will affect Southern and Thameslink train services on several routes.
Trains and stations will be much busier than usual on Sunday, with spectators travelling to and from the London Marathon and the FA Cup semi-final, so passengers are warned to allow plenty of time for their journeys.
Photo credit: Siemens Mobility
