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A West Midlands passenger service which was withdrawn as a wartime economy measure in January 1941 is running again.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.

The Government has outlined plans to help local councils make seamless travel on trains, trams and buses easier, but one transport campaigning group has warned that a truly integrated national transport system should be the long-term ambition. Other measures announced by the Department for Transport today include a new Google Maps partnership so that passengers can track rural buses and ‘Mini-Switzerland’ Peak District trials.

An interim chief executive has been appointed at the Office of Rail and Road to replace John Larkinson, who was at the centre of a controversy during the autumn of last year when the ORR proposed to withdraw the popular 07.00 Avanti West Coast service from Manchester to London from January, replacing it with an empty stock working which would still have departed from Piccadilly each morning with a full crew.

The exhibition train which has been touring Britain in celebration of Railway 200 is nearing the end of the line, as its last few calling points are announced. The ‘Inspiration’ train started its tour last summer at the Severn Valley Railway, and has since welcomed thousands of visitors. It is currently at Minehead on the West Somerset Railway and will then visit Cornwall for the only time by going to Newquay between 6 and 11 April.

Frustrated residents in the Buckinghamshire town of Winslow are setting up an Action Group, as there appears to be no end in sight to the deadlock which is preventing scheduled passenger trains running between Oxford, Bletchley and Milton Keynes. The restored section of line between Bicester and Bletchley was completed in 2024 and approved by ORR inspectors in October of that year, but so far the only trains have been freight workings and test runs, apart from one or two passenger charters.

The Office of Rail and Road has authorised Bedlington station in Northumberland, which is set to open on 29 March. It will be the last station to be reopened on the route between Newcastle and Ashington.

The Department for Transport has published the details of agreements between Westminster and the devolved governments of Scotland and Wales which will apply under Great British Railways. New memorandums of understanding agreed by transport secretary Heidi Alexander provide for joint control, although the Scottish version is only a ‘framework’ at this stage.

Train services from Glasgow Central High Level have been restored, after a closure which began on 8 March because of a fire which destroyed a building next to the station. All platforms are now back in use, although part of the concourse is still cordoned off.

Trains on HS2 could run more slowly as a result of cost-saving changes to the project. The planned maximum line speed of 360km/h may be abandoned in favour of 320km/h at the most. The rethink has been ordered by transport secretary Heidi Alexander, who is instructing HS2 CEO Mark Wild to examine various options which could mean that the line could be opened sooner, and at lower cost.

The last six platforms at Glasgow Central High Level will reopen on Wednesday, said ScotRail, although some entrances will still not be in use. The whole station was closed on 8 March after a building alongside had been gutted by fire, and Glasgow Central was cordoned off for safety reasons. At first, even trains at the Low Level platforms were running through without stopping, but they were able to call again from 11 March, and high level platforms 7 to 15 reopened on 18 March.

The last 800m of overhead has been energised and tested between Cardiff Queen Street and Cardiff Bay, completing the six-year ?1 billion project to electrify the Core Valley lines, which cover 170km. Tram trains are now set to start entering service between between Pontypridd and Cardiff Bay.

Train services at Glasgow Central High Level are set to be disrupted into next week, National Rail has warned, after the Union Street fire on 8 March which closed the station. Platforms 7 to 15 were able to reopen on Wednesday, allowing a number of ScotRail routes to be restored. Avanti West Coast is running one train an hour, and Caledonian Sleeper has also returned, but passengers are being warned that parts of the High Level station remain closed, very few facilities are available and several entrances remain out of use.

A fleet of diesel trains built for the Midland Main Line in England more than 20 years ago is going to Scotland, where it will replace ScotRail’s High Speed Trains. The HSTs, introduced during the 1970s by British Rail, are the last of their type in regular service in Britain, after GWR retired its four-car ‘Castle’ sets last year.

The RMT has called off strikes it was to stage from next week in its dispute with Transport for London over proposals for a four-day week on London Underground. The union says the plan would involve four longer shifts each week, and that it was concerned about fatigue, but that there has now been progress in talks with TfL.

Two restored stations in the West Midlands opened their doors today. Three more are set to open next month.