Click here to listen to the latest rail news on Monday, 28th February 2022
InTheNews: The latest rail news on Monday, 28th February 2022
A row has broken out over Sadiq Khan’s record on Tube strikes as London commuters face a week of travel chaos.
That’s according to an article in the Evening Standard that writes that the GLA Conservatives said that the number of days of strikes since Mr Khan became mayor in May 2016 would this week surpass the joint total under the previous 16 years of Ken Livingstone’s and Boris Johnson’s mayoralties.
The London Underground is expected to be forced to close throughout Tuesday and Thursday due to the first network-wide action in more than five years.
In response to the criticism, Mr Khan’s spokeswoman told the paper there had been a “70.2 per cent reduction” in strike days compared with Mr Johnson, when the total number of staff shifts that were lost to strikes were counted rather than simply the days on which strikes took place.
The main railway line connecting Brighton and London has reopened, following a nine-day closure for major engineering works costing £15 million.
The article on the ITV website says engineers worked to rebuild Copyhold Junction near Haywards Heath which controls the movement of trains in and out of Ardingly freight branch and Brighton.
Transport for Wales (TfW) is celebrating the completion of work to refurbish its fleet of Class 158 long-distance trains.
Work has been ongoing at Arriva TrainCare’s facility in Crewe since the start of 2020 to refurbish the fleet of 24 trains, which operate on routes throughout the Wales and Borders network, including the Cambrian Line in Mid Wales and services to North and West Wales.
The work is part of TfW’s £40 million refurbishment programme, which has also included a refresh of the Class 175, 150 and 153 trains.
Plans for a multimillion-pound expansion of engineering facilities and important refurbishment works to a grade ii-listed workshop in Bury have been approved.
The article on Insider Media Limited says Bury planning chiefs gave a unanimous thumbs up to the proposals for The Buckley Wells Locomotive Depot, an important part of the East Lancashire Railway overall operations.
The heritage railway successfully applied to Bury Council to carry out restoration of the locomotive works which is the oldest engineering workshop in the world still in operation.
Photo credit: Transport for Wales
