Click here to listen to the latest rail news on Thursday, 8th January 2026.
InTheNews: The latest rail news on Thursday 8th January 2026
Railway staff are preparing Britain’s railway for the predicted cold and stormy weather today and tomorrow with a challenging 24 hours of heavy snow, ice, rain and high winds ahead of them.
Passengers are urged to check before they travel on Thursday afternoon and evening, and particularly on Friday morning, as the storm is forecast to last well into the night, potentially affecting the start of services.
Heavy snow is forecast in Wales, the Midlands and North West from Thursday afternoon, along with high winds forecast in the South West, and potentially heavy rain in the South. Some lines will be closed in Wales from Thursday afternoon, and some routes in the North West may also need to be shut as a precaution.
London will struggle to build its target 88,000 new homes every year for the next decade unless two major rail projects are given the green light, the deputy mayor for housing has said.
An article on the BBC website says Tom Copley said the next London Plan would factor in the government’s request, which was part of a target for 1.5m new homes in the UK by 2029, but could fall short if enough infrastructure was not built.
He told the London Assembly Budget and Performance Committee that a “huge amount of infrastructure and funding” was needed.
“In order to actually get to that target, a lot of things have to happen,” he said. “The DLR extension is very important. We also need a Bakerloo Line extension, the West London Orbital.”
Rail union RMT, has put the latest pay offer of 3.8 per cent from Network Rail out to referendum of its members working in maintenance and operations on the railway with a recommendation to accept.
The publicly owned company has offered a pay rise in line with the Retail Price Index (RPI) for one year with a no compulsory redundancy guarantee.
RMT members will now decide whether to accept the offer and end the pay dispute with Network Rail.
Network Rail says journeys on the West Coast Main Line are now more reliable after a once-in-a-generation overhaul of the signalling system in Carlisle.
The infrastructure manager has invested ÂŁ61m into the Kingmoor resignalling project to modernise 1960s systems and replace them with newer technology.
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