Railnews.co.uk

General

• New £15m entrance for Leeds station is approved, but some doubts remain

  - Plans for a new £15 million entrance to Leeds station have been approved by the city’s Planning Committee, but one councillor has slammed the idea as a ‘white elephant’. Metro and Network Rail are developing a new southern entrance which will allow people to get in and out of the station from both sides of the river Aire around Granary Wharf.

• Passenger Focus calls for ‘right time’ railway

  - Passenger Focus is calling for the scrapping of the five or ten minutes margin which is allowed before a train is officially late. Five minutes is applied to commuter services and ten for intercity trains. However, ATOC has responded that it does not need Passenger Focus to remind it that punctuality is important.

Business

• Eccles to replace Green on Network Rail board

  - Graham Eccles is due to replace Chris Green as a non-executive director at Network Rail in July. Mr Eccles, who has 45 years of experience in the railway industry, is one of two new appointments which will depend on the agreement of members at Network Rail's Annual General Meeting.

• Network Rail names new non-exec directors

  - Network Rail has announced the appointment of two new non-executive directors, Lawrie Haynes and Janis Kong. Lawrie Haynes is a successful chairman and chief executive, and Janis Kong has much experience of operating businesses where customer relationships have been critical.

Metro

• Countdown is on to crucial £400m Tube Lines decision

  - The PPP Arbiter Chris Bolt is due to publish a key decision about the funding of LUL contractor Tube Lines this week. His findings are set to play a major part in deciding how much progress the Underground makes over the next few years.

• DfT’s ‘inadequate management’ of failed Metronet could have cost taxpayer £410m, say MPs

  - A House of Commons Committee has published a damning report of the Department for Transport’s management of Metronet, the London Underground PPP contractor which collapsed in 2007. The Committee of Public Accounts said the taxpayer could have lost as much as £410 million because of the DfT’s methods.

Freight

• New American locos for Freightliner arrive in Britain

  - The first American GE PowerHaul locomotives for Freightliner have arrived at Newport in South Wales. The two are the first of an eventual fleet of 30 of Class 70s. Four more should leave the US within the next month, but further deliveries are not due until later in 2010. Freightliner said the performance of the first six will be carefully monitored in service, and the first two will be divided between the Heavyhaul and Intermodal divisions of Freightliner.

• Councillors throw out plans for giant freight interchange

  - PLANS for a giant rail freight depot to be built on the former Radlett Airfield site at Park Street, St Albans have been rejected by St Albans City and District Council for the second time.

International

• Proposed French tax ‘could cost Eurostar £5m’

  - A new proposed French rolling stock tax which could cost Eurostar £5 million or more is set to be challenged under European law. The French proposal would come into effect only a short time before international open access starts on 1 January.

• US enthusiasm for High Speed threatens to break the bank of Obama’s rail budget

  - While the UK government’s proposals for domestic High Speed lines won’t be known until the end of this year, dozens of projects have been put forward in the United States following President Obama’s planned investment of $8bn (£5bn) to stimulate rail projects. The only problem is that the total cost of the applications from various states is seven times the federal budget allocation.

Politics

• ‘Mouthing slogans’ is not enough to achieve seven-day railway, says Adonis

  - The transport secretary Andrew Adonis is warning that ‘mouthing slogans’ will not be enough to achieve a seven-day railway. Lord Adonis told Railnews that the ambition of keeping trains running without engineering disruption is a long way off – but that he intends to keep the pressure on Network Rail to achieve it.

• Adonis seeks cross-party consensus on High Speed rail

  - RAILNEWS EXCLUSIVE The Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis has revealed that he's been holding informal discussions with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to improve the chances of a cross-party consensus on High Speed rail. Lord Adonis also told Railnews that he has no intention of serving under any other government if Labour loses the election next year.

Trackback

• Trackback

  - Recall the years since 1963, in our growing series of annual snapshots.

• 1963

  - 1963 was a turning point for the railways in Britain. The British Railways Board took over from the British Transport Commission on 1 January, and the first edition of Railnews was published in July. But railways really hit the headlines on 27 March, when the Chairman, Dr Richard Beeching, published his report on The Reshaping of British Railways.