Train dragged down overhead at Manchester Piccadilly
Network Rail has revealed that more than 400 metres of overhead wires were damaged by a train outside Manchester Piccadilly on Thursday evening, which led to all platforms being closed so that engineers could carry out repairs. Network Rail declared the station ‘fully open’ again at 11.00 today, although it warned that some changes to services were still possible for a while.
A fault with the overhead wires at Manchester Piccadilly is expected to cause many delays and cancellations today, which are also affecting trains to Manchester Airport. Wiring on the station throat was damaged yesterday morning, and trains only started to return to Piccadilly at 07.00 today.
Two sites in Derby have made the final shortlist for a new Great British Railways HQ. They are city centre brownfield site Becketwell and Midland House, an existing railway building opposite Derby station. Three other candidates have been ruled out.
New plans and images for East West Rail have been unveiled, including the possibility of running up to five trains an hour between Oxford and Cambridge. The trains will be longer, and several stations will be rebuilt or gain additional entrances, while discontinuous electrification is likely, so that hybrid electric/battery trains can be used. The new plans are part of a further round of consultation which has been launched today by the East West Railway company.
The era of telephones at signals is coming to an end, the RSSB has announced. They were originally provided so that train crews could communicate with the nearest signal box without walking down the line, but they are now being replaced by GSM-R cab radios or specialist portable devices.
A leaked government review of the plans to build tram lines in Leeds has concluded that buses would be cheaper. The Labour mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin had promised to get ‘spades in the ground’ by 2028, but the project has been pushed back into the 2030s after the Cabinet Office and the Treasury carried out an audit in September.
A West Midlands passenger service which was withdrawn as a wartime economy measure in January 1941 is running again. Although the closure of the Camp Hill line in Birmingham was originally said to be temporary, it was confirmed by the LMS in 1946. The line itself has continued to be used by through traffic.