The Government is preparing to publish its White Paper on further High Speed lines today. It's expected that a route between London and Birmingham will be at the heart of the proposals, but other major cities are waiting to see what the plans will mean for them.

The PPP Arbiter has ruled that Tube Lines will receive £4.46 billion in its next Control Period. The decision leaves the London Underground contractor with a shortfall of more than £1 billion. Even so, Transport for London, which had offered just £4 billion, says it may now challenge the Arbiter’s ruling.

Two further extensions to Manchester Metrolink have been authorised by the DfT, and talks are underway on the construction of another new line which would bring trams to Manchester Airport.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Network Rail has appointed a new executive to take charge of the 2500+ stations on the National Rail network in Britain, as part of what it is describing as its ‘ambitious plans to transform rail stations’.

I first visited Birmingham over thirty years ago, and at the time it shared the facets of many great Industrial cities with industry in decline, the financial services revolution still a glimmer in Maggie Thatcher's eye, and the oft-heralded 'White Heat of technology' had become a dull grey.

LAST month I published the National Transport Plan for Wales, which will guide the development of a genuinely integrated transport system for Wales and I see rail as a crucial element in this plan.

AS a minister who has used the train over 600 times since coming into Government, I have a real passion and enthusiasm for rail. Commuting to and from work on the train each day has given me a chance to experience the rail network at first-hand and those experiences have given me a clear vision about what I, and this Government, want to achieve in Scotland.

IN delivering a Sustainable Transport System, Geoff Hoon suggests we should tackle climate change by "preserving freedom of choice, facing people with the true carbon cost of those choices... helping people reduce their need to travel or switch to lower-carbon modes".

Government argues that the start of two years of gauge enhancement work from Southampton to the West Midlands to allow 9ft 6ins containers to be carried on standard flat wagons (W10 gauge) is a major milestone in the creation of a network capable of carrying these containers, not only from major ports to inland destinations, but also within the UK.