Season of industrial action starts
The first day of industrial action by the RMT on West Midlands Trains starts on Saturday 16 November, and WMT is warning that service levels will be sharply reduced, with no trains at all on some routes or sections of routes. The walkout marks the start of a season of industrial discontent, because more action by RMT members is also looming between now and the end of the year affecting South Western Railway, Tyne & Wear Metro, the Victoria Line of London Underground and Eurostar catering. The RMT is also balloting London Underground cleaners, while the clerical and managerial staff union TSSA is preparing to ballot its members on CrossCountry in a dispute over pay.
Eurostar is marking its 25th anniversary by unveiling a plastics-free train, on which single-use plastics have been eliminated. The first Eurostar left London Waterloo on 14 November 1994, and since then Eurostar has gained more routes and a new fleet of rolling stock.
The Railway Industry Association has unveiled its own manifesto, with less than a month to go before the General Election. The suppliers’ trade group has set out the main tasks which face the industry over the next 30 years, with the aim of developing a ‘long-term, sustainable rail industry’. RIA says future governments must work with the rail industry to set the priorities and consider the role of the industry as a key exporter, when developing new trade agreements.
HS2 should still be built, in spite of rising costs, according to a report based on a leaked draft version of the Oakervee review. The review apparently warns there are no ‘shovel-ready’ alternative ways of increasing rail capacity, and that without such increases to cater for growth in demand, peak travel would have to be deliberately suppressed by large fare rises. The review also admits that higher costs have cut the estimated benefits to taxpayers from £2.30 for every pound spent to as little as £1.30.
The predicted costs of Crossrail are set to rise again by as much as £650 million to more than £18 billion. Phased openings, now set to begin in 2021, will mean initial Elizabeth Line services to Shenfield will start from Liverpool Street main line, and Reading and Heathrow services will start from the main line platforms at Paddington. Opening in phases both east and west was always intended after the central section had been launched in December 2018, but although the central section is not now expected to open until 2021, the rest of the programme will then continue in stages as before. This means that initially only the outer London station at Abbey Wood will be served by trains running through the central London tunnels to Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road and Paddington. Transport for London also admits that even then Bond Street station is unlikely to open with the rest of the central section, because of ‘design and delivery challenges’.
The number of passengers using trains rather than planes between London and Glasgow has reached a new record, according to Virgin Trains. The operator said rail had a 29 per cent share of the traffic during the 12 months to July this year, and that annual passenger numbers on the route have now reached 700,000, compared with 244,000 ten years ago. The London-Glasgow air route is the second busiest domestic route in Britain, and Virgin is attributing the rise of rail to the improvements it has made over the last 20 years, including tilting trains and faster journeys following Network Rail’s upgrades of the West Coast Main Line.
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