Railnews.co.uk

General

• Extra West Coast Pendolino carriages — by 2012

  - THE Department for Transport has reached agreement with Alstom for the construction of extra and longer tilting Pendolino trains for West Coast Main Line inter-city services. And GoVia and Virgin have been short-listed as bidders to manage their introduction.

• Network Rail gets green light to complete West Coast by December 2008

  - NETWORK Rail has been given the go-ahead by the Office of Rail Regulation to complete work on the £8.6 billion West Coast main line modernisation by December this year.

Business

• Bugle system taken over by Datasys

  - UIC Systems, which was part of the Universal Improvement Company, based at Belper, Derbyshire—supplier for the past six years of Bugle, the performance management system used by all of Britain’s train operating companies—has been sold to Manchester-based software specialist Datasys.

• Balfour Beatty in contract for world’s longest rail tunnel

  - A CONSORTIUM including Britain’s Balfour Beatty has won a £790 million contract for the design, installation and commissioning of rail infrastructure in the world’s longest rail tunnel.

Metro

• Metrolink splashes out to give swimmers free ride

  - SWIMMERS wearing swimsuits, goggles and swimming caps joined passengers on a Metrolink tram in Manchester just before the city staged the FINA World Swimming Championships.

• London Underground strike called off

  - A threatened 48-hour strike by London Underground staff in the run up to the London Assembly and Mayoral elections on 1 May has been called off by the RMT union.

Freight

• £40 million plan for freight trains at Nuneaton

  - NETWORK Rail has announced plans to invest more than £40 million to build a new rail freight link in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Known as the Nuneaton North Chord, the new line – approximately one mile long – will allow freight to cross from Eastern England, via Peterborough and Leicester, to the West Coast Main Line without disrupting passenger services.

• EWS Energy
 wins new ScottishPower contract

  - EWS Energy has won a new contract from ScottishPower for the delivery of coal by rail to two major power stations in Scotland.

People

• NR workers rescue girl, 13, from house blaze

  - THREE Network Rail men became shy heroes when they smashed their way into a blazing house to rescue a 13-year-old girl.

• Engineer John snaps up first place

  - THE photographic skills of ScotRail maintenance engineer John Hay have earned him first place in a national competition.

International

• New Zealand buys back its railways

  - THE New Zealand government—whose railway privatisation in 1993 influenced the Conservative plans in Britain for selling off rail operations—is re-nationalising its TranzRail train and ferry services.

• German Rail part-privatisation to go ahead

  - GERMANY'S state railway operator Deutsche Bahn is to be partially privatised after the country’s coalition government worked out a compromise deal. Just under a quarter of passenger and freight operations could be sold by the end of this year.

Westminster Watch

• Kelly ‘invites interest’ in building Thameslink fleet

  - MAJOR steps have been taken towards starting infrastructure construction and ordering new trains for the £5.5 billion expansion of the Thameslink north-south route across Central London

• Friend of the railway, the political giant with a heart of gold

  - TRIBUTES paid following the sudden death of Commons transport committee chairman Gwyneth Dunwoody have highlighted how the railway industry has lost a true friend.

Environment

• Travel planners hand out award for go-green stadium

  - GATESHEAD International Stadium has been recognised for efforts to encourage its 400,000 visitors a year to get there in an environmentally-friendly way.

• Pollution cuts will prevent 5,000-tonne carbon mountain

  - TUBE Lines wants to reduce its CO2 emissions by 5,000 tonnes by the end of the year – the equivalent of an individual travelling the full length of the Piccadilly line 1.1 million times.