Cabinet meeting
Siemens hosted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and members of the cabinet at the Goole Rail Village in Yorkshire. The ministers had visited the north of England to hold a cabinet meeting, which was held in the Components Facility building at Goole. Before the meeting, the Prime Minister met Siemens Mobility’s UK & Ireland joint CEO Sambit Banerjee and spoke to a group of apprentice engineers and technicians about the construction of Piccadilly Line trains, which are being assembled at Goole for Transport for London.

Budget message
The Government must make long term funding certainty for public transport and active travel in city regions a priority in next week’s Spring Budget, the Urban Transport Group said. In a letter to chancellor Jeremy Hunt, the group of transport authorities said transport investment is key to ‘securing sustainable economic growth and good social outcomes for millions across the country’.  

On the watch
Northern is installing 86 new CCTV cameras at Manchester Victoria station. The operator said it will improve CCTV coverage at the station, including the entrance, concourse, two footbridges and platforms 1 to 6. Regional director Craig Harrop said: ‘We already have thousands of cameras at stations across our network and on board our trains but we are adding more with this £750,000 investment.’

Canal drained
Network Rail engineers have completed a nine-day programme at the only sliding canal bridge in Britain, which is at Keadby, near Scunthorpe. They have worked around the clock from 17 February until the early hours of yesterday to strengthen one of the canal’s walls and remove rails and track equipment so that they could be replaced. A 24.5 tonne pre-cast concrete slab has been installed on the canal’s north wall to strengthen it. To do this, the engineers had to drain part of the Stainforth and Keadby canal using a limpet dam, a structure positioned on the side of the canal wall which created a water-tight seal so that the repairs could be carried out.