Click here to listen to the latest rail news on Monday, 6th March 2023
InTheNews: The latest rail news on Monday, 6th March 2023
A £160 million passenger rail line which shut in the 1960s is set to reopen next year with six new stations.
An article on the BBC website says the 18-mile Northumberland Line – between Newcastle and Ashington – will open in summer 2024, ministers said.
The county council welcomes the news and said building work on the line had created more than 100 jobs.
Half-hourly services are set for the line, also stopping at Blyth, Bebside, Bedlington, Newsham, Seaton Delaval and Northumberland Park Metro station.
Rail passengers are being hit by the biggest fare hike in more than a decade against a backdrop of record cancellations and strike disruption.
An article on the Sky News website says regulated ticket prices are increasing by 5.9 per cent, adding hundreds of pounds to the cost of many annual season tickets.
It is the highest fare rise since 2012, when prices rose by 6 per cent.
But the government points out this year’s increase is “well below inflation” and has again been delayed in recognition that “people are feeling the pinch” with the cost of living crisis.
Network Rail says that Carstairs Junction is being modernised as part of a £164 million Scottish Government investment in the railway.
The West Coast main line closed on Saturday for 16 days as engineers deliver a vital programme of work to upgrade Carstairs Junction.
The closure of the line, between March 4 and March 19, is the first phase of a three-month programme of work which will also see trains diverted and journey-times extended all services between Glasgow/Edinburgh and Carlisle until June.
HS2 says that ‘Florence’ and ‘Cecilia’ – the two giant tunnelling machines digging HS2’s longest tunnels – have passed Amersham, 5-and-a-half miles into their 10 mile drive under the Chilterns.
The enormous 2,000 tonne machines have spent almost two years excavating the twin tunnels between the M25 and South Heath in Buckinghamshire that will help the high speed rail project protect the environment while improving connections between London, Birmingham and the North.
Each machine is a 170m long self-contained underground factory, digging the tunnel, lining it with 56,000 concrete segments to form rings and grouting them into place as it moves forward.
Photo credit: Network Rail
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