Click here to listen to the latest rail news on Tuesday, 27th March 2024.
InTheNews: The latest rail news on Tuesday, 27th March 2024
The Chief Executive of Network Rail has paid tribute to the supply chain, thanking small SMEs and global players alike for their efforts during Control Period 6 (CP6).
“We spend some £6 billion a year with our suppliers and we require their help more than ever to create an efficient railway and spend tax and farepayers’ money as wisely as we can,” said Andrew Haines, commenting as Network Rail reflected on CP6.
CP6, which is the infrastructure manager’s sixth five-year funding period, began on 1 April 2019 and will end 31 March 2024. Network Rail said that, during this period, it had successfully delivered major rail upgrades across Great Britain, improving the railway for its passengers and freight users. It added that it had undertaken this work while navigating unprecedented change, both within and outside the railway.
The next steps of development for Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) between Manchester and Liverpool have been announced.
The announcement comes after the Government’s Network North plan, following the cancellation of phase 2 of HS2, confirmed £12 billion to boost connections and enable Northern Powerhouse Rail to be delivered.
As part of this plan, the Government says it committed to engage with local leaders and MPs to hear their views on the use of this funding and consider any alternative proposals they had to improve connections.
A railway station which only sees one train stop a week could close for good and be demolished.
An article on the BBC website says Bordesley Station in Birmingham is one of a handful of stations around the country known as ghost stations, which are kept open because it would be more expensive to close them down.
Two others, Barlaston and Wedgwood in Staffordshire, have been served by rail-replacement buses since 23 May 2004.
Weather resilience, keeping people safe, driving efficiencies, and using data in a better way. Those are the four key priorities as Network Rail enters Control Period 7 next week. That was the message from Robert Ampomah, Chief Technology Officer at Network Rail.
“We are in a really privileged position to be given a £43 billion investment in the next five years,” he said. “It still means that our costs will be very tight, it won’t deliver all the things that we probably would like to deliver, but it will go some way to ensuring we are in a better place going forward.
“It will mean that we have to do a lot more maintenance and maintenance that lasts longer, we will also have to think about the environment in everything that we do. That’s not just about biodiversity, but it is also about achieving net zero and reducing our carbon footprint. We have to do all of that while making the railway safe, but at the same we need to make sure we run a punctual railway.”
He was speaking on the opening day of the Railway Industry Association’s (RIA) Innovation Conference at the ICC in Wales. This year’s event, which concludes today, is themed on the topic of ‘Inspired by Innovating’.
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