Transportinfo.org.uk - today's transport news in the uk, hand picked for you each morning

Tuesday, 26 June 2012

BBC News

• Handling the London Waterloo rush hour on Twitter It was 15:30 on a Wednesday, and a man was threatening to throw himself off a bridge and into the path of an oncoming train.
• Southern Railway extends scheme to report crime by email An initiative which encourages rail passengers to report incidents of low-level crime by email is being extended through Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
• Cardiff rail commute top - Campaign for Better Transport Train services in Cardiff are among the most affordable in the UK, with the least overcrowding and one of the most punctual, research has claimed.

The Guardian

• Commuters face rail fare hikes of at least 6% next year Government to reinstate fare rises of 3% above inflation as train operators consider campaigning for lower increase

Birmingham Post

• New Street developers hark back to station's heritage for latest addition.New Street station developers have harked back to its 19th century heritage with the opening of new staff facilities at platform 1.
• Time to re-open old line to take advantage of freight boom claims Centro bossThe West Midlands should take advantage of the UK’s booming rail freight market by re-opening the Walsall to Stourbridge railway line, according to the regional transport authority.

Bradford Telegraph & Argus

• Senior council chief says ‘more could be done’ to deliver UK’s best suburban railway A rail link to Leeds-Bradford Airport, electrification of the Caldervale Line and development of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, are among a list of “aspirations” a senior council figure wants taken forward up to 2026.

Journal Live

• Northumberland man reunited with locomotiveA MAN who drove a locomotive at a Northumberland colliery over 25 years ago has been reunited with it at a blossoming heritage railway.

London Evening Standard

• Central Croydon trams set to arrive every five minutesThe number of trams running in Croydon will increase by 50 per cent from today.

Manchester Evening News

• Manchester rail commuters the most miserable in the countryManchester's rail commuters are the most miserable in the country, a survey has revealed. The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT)  grilled travellers from 11 cities in England and Wales about how happy they were with train service affordability, overcrowding and punctuality.

Northern Echo

• Hitachi project 'definite' REPORTS claiming the number of carriages to be produced at Hitachi™s planned train-building factory in the region is being cut have been firmly rejected.

Other Regional Press

• Transport group pushes for valleys rail electrification THE TRANSPORT group SEWTA (South East Wales Transport Alliance ) is again pressing the UK Government to invest in the rail electrification of South Wales by promoting the business case to include the Valley™s network.

Global Rail News

• Making RRVs safeWrites Dr Liesel von Metz, HM Inspector of Railways at the Office of Rail Regulation The road-rail vehicle (RRV) has become a ubiquitous feature of engineering work on the modern railway. Coming in many different guises, the RRV is fundamentally a road vehicle to which rail wheels have somehow been attached to allow the vehicle [...]
• Glasgow Subway to receive £2.5 million faceliftGlasgow Subway’s underground tunnels are to receive a £2.5 million facelift as Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) announces the latest projects to modernise the network. The partnership has confirmed that contracts worth £1.3 million and £1.2 million have been awarded to contractors to refurbish a section of the tunnel and Partick station respectively. On Friday, [...]
• Commuters content in Cardiff but miserable in ManchesterCardiff has the happiest rail commuters while Manchester has the most miserable, according to an index published by Campaign for Better Transport this week. The transport charity looked at how train services in 11 cities around the UK performed on affordability, overcrowding and punctuality. Unlike existing passenger satisfaction surveys, which are based on individual train [...]
• Western Railway to invest in new ticket machines to cut queuesWestern Railway (WR) is planning to buy 490 extra automatic ticket validating machines (ATVMs) to reduce long queues at suburban stations. Speaking to Rail.co, a WR spokesman said: œWR has already increased the number of ATVMs from 115 to 171 in last two months. With 24 more ATVMs to be installed shortly, the total number [...]
• Rail Media team completes peaks challenge despite downpourRail Media fundraisers braved torrential rain to climb three mountains in less than 24 hours for charity. The four-man team summited Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis – the three highest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales – as part of the Three Peaks by Rail challenge for Railway Children. Organisers described the weather as [...]
• ˜Badger™ hole causes train delayTrains were stopped between Hereford and Great Malvern after engineers were called to repair a ‘badger’ hole under the line. The driver of the 7.34am Hereford to Birmingham service spotted the hazard this morning and stopped the train. A Network Rail spokesman said clay substrate had sunk into an underground hole, which could have been [...]