Transport secretary confirms 2026 rail fares freeze
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander has confirmed that regulated National Rail fares in England will be frozen in 2026, instead of rising by at least the RPI for July 2025, which was 4.8 per cent. The Scottish Government has already made travel on ScotRail cheaper by abolishing peak fares, and this decision will mean that English rail fares will be cheaper in real terms when inflation is taken into account.
The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is welcoming widespread reports that next week’s budget will include funding for an extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Thamesmead.
New plans for East West Rail have been published following a public consultation, including a reduction in the number of stations between Bletchley and Bedford and a new station at Cambridge East, but the rail unions are opposing Chiltern’s intention to run driver-only trains on the newest section, between Bicester and Bletchley.
The dates for the next 16 visits by the Railway 200 exhibition train up to mid-March have been announced. The train, ‘Inspiration’, started its journey on 27 June at Kidderminster, and has since been to various places, including several in Scotland. The new list takes the train to stations in the north west and south east, outside London.
The Peterborough man accused of stabbing 10 people on an LNER train from Doncaster to London on 1 November is now facing seven more charges. Anthony Williams, of Langford Road in Peterborough, is already due to appear before Cambridge Crown Court on 1 December in connection with charges of attempted murder on the train, but he will also now appear before Peterborough Magistrates’ Court later today for a second time, where he will face the additional charges.
The conclusion of engineering work on the Isle of Wight and in Cornwall has allowed trains to return to the lines between Ryde and Shanklin, and between Par and Newquay. Island Line has been dogged by repeated closures in recent years, often in connection with work on Ryde Pier, while the Newquay line in Cornwall has also been closed for repeated possessions this year so that Network Rail and its contractors could complete tests on new digital signalling.
A renationalised operator says it is not waiting for the ‘structural reform’ which will come with Great British Railways to get more passengers on board. Northern, which was returned to public ownership in March 2020, has unveiled a ‘30 by 30’ plan intended to increase annual passenger totals by 30 million by the end of this decade.