![Eurostar disrupted by arson attacks in France](/img/medium/news04602.jpg)
Eurostar disrupted by arson attacks in France
Three arson attacks have disrupted high speed train services in France, a few hours before the Olympics opening ceremony in Paris. Trains from London have been affected, along with other international and domestic high speed services within France. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal says the effect on the country’s railways has been ‘massive and serious’. SNCF said many fibre-optic cables by the side of the track which carry signalling data had been damaged by the fires. Police with Olympics duties are reported to have been diverted to some major stations in Paris to help deal with crowds of frustrated travellers. Some soldiers have also been seen on stations.
More talks over the long-running train drivers’ pay dispute are set to be held in the near future, after a first meeting this week between ASLEF and the Department for Transport was hailed a success and officially described as ‘constructive’. Before the election on 4 July, ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan had blamed the Conservative government for the stalemate in the dispute and the continuing strikes.
Transport secretary Louise Haigh has criticised the Conservatives’ management of HS2, in the wake of a report from the National Audit Office which warns that capacity between London and Manchester will be reduced rather than increased because the trains planned for HS2, which will continue north of Birmingham on the conventional network, may have fewer seats than the Pendolinos they will replace. The report says it may be necessary to encourage people ‘to travel at different times or to not travel by rail’, although it concedes ‘this may constrain economic growth’. The charity Campaign for Better Transport says HS2 has become ’a complete shambles’.
The third Railnews podcast has been published.
Sir Kenneth Grange, who designed the appearance of British Rail’s first High Speed Trains in the 1970s, has died just four days after his 95th birthday. The novel appearance of the InterCity 125 power cars quickly became a symbol of British Rail’s increasingly successful InterCity business, after the first had entered public service on the Western Region main line in October 1976. Sir Kenneth, whose industrial designs spanned a wide range of objects, including the Kenwood Chef food mixer and the Anglepoise lamp, had been commissioned to design the InterCity 125 livery, but he decided to redesign the appearance of the power car without telling British Rail.
Network Rail has revealed that there was a case of trespassing on the railway every half hour on average in the year to 5 April, and that the total number of incidents reported was more than 19,300. Compared with the previous year, the number of accumulated delay minutes rose by 15 per cent last year, making trespass one of the biggest causes of late running. Trespass is almost twice as likely to happen during the summer months, because more than three out of five incidents were recorded then.
Network Rail has named the acting chair who is replacing Lord Peter Hendy, after he was appointed rail minister at the Department for Transport on 8 July. His successor for now is Network Rail senior non-executive director Mike Putnam. Mr Putnam, who is a chartered engineer, joined the Board of Network Rail in 2018 and has over 25 years’ executive experience in the development, construction and services sectors.