CrossCountry will lease eight more Class 221 Voyagers from early next year. Six of the units have been cascaded from Avanti West Coast, and two have been released by Grand Central.

One casualty of privatisation was probably unexpected -- the names of stations. Sim Harris discusses the confusion on our platforms.

The Office of Rail and Road has launched a consultation on a draft Retail Code of Practice that is intended to create a level playing field for sellers of tickets. At the moment, 14 separate operators run their own websites and apps, and these will be replaced by Great British Railways. However, independent retailers will continue, including open access and devolved operators in Scotland and Wales.

The rail regulator has turned down two more open access applications, on the grounds that there is not enough capacity on the West Coast Main Line. The ORR had been considering proposals for four return services between London and Wrexham from the Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands Railway Company. It has also refused Lumo’s plans for up to four daily trains between London and Rochdale and an application from Avanti West Coast for more paths between London and Blackpool.

Another open access application has reached the end of the line, with the news that Grand Central has abandoned its proposal to run services from Cleethorpes, saying that the plan is ‘no longer commercially viable’. Sim Harris asks if the era of domestic open access is coming to a close.

Over 400 thousand journeys have been made at Cambridge South station since it opened 100 days ago, dramatically improving the way people travel to and from Europe’s largest biomedical campus. The new station is heading towards annual patronage figures of 1.6 million journeys, well on the way towards the 1.8 million expected in the medium term.

Chiltern Railways is confident that it will be able to run a ‘near normal’ service when the RMT stages two strikes this month. The union has declared an industrial dispute over plans to operate trains on East West Rail with only a driver. It says driver-only operation would represent a ‘significant risk' to safety, as well as the job security of existing train managers.

An interim report from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch has revealed that the red signal which was passed a few seconds before the rear-end collision south of Bedford on 19 June this year was not equipped with a SPAD alarm. The driver of the second train was killed, and more than 160 people were injured.

The arrival of autumn means that fleets of Network Rail’s special ‘leaf-busting’ trains are setting out on their journeys today. They will travel for a total of 6,200 hours -- the equivalent of 36 weeks -- in their annual bid to keep railheads clean, because fallen leaves create a black film, rather like dry ice, which can make it difficult for trains to stop and also cause damage to motors if the wheels slip.

East Midlands Railway has undertaken to restore more of the services which have been suspended since July because of rolling stock problems. Difficulties with its new Aurora fleet were compounded by delays in maintaining its Class 222 diesel units, but the operator improved its Intercity services from 87 per cent to 92 per cent of the full planned timetable on 1 September.

The RMT has announced that its members on Chiltern Railways will be taking two 24-hour strikes in October, as the dispute over the staffing of trains on East West Rail continues. The union is opposing proposals to run the trains between Oxford, Bletchley and Milton Keynes with drivers only. (2 comments)

The deputy chief inspector at the Rail Accident Investigation Branch Andy Lewis is being promoted to chief inspector from November. He will replace Andrew Hall, who is retiring.

New figures show crimes involving trespass, including cable theft, vandalism and obstruction, caused over 3,300 hours of delays for passengers -- equivalent to more than four months -- and cost the rail sector more than 10 million pounds in delay attribution minutes during 2025-26. In response, the industry has launched a new ‘Crime with Consequences’ campaign to make sure potential offenders are aware they will face the full force of the law if they commit crimes on the railway, and that the penalties include severe fines or prison sentences.

The plans, announced at the Labour Party conference in Manchester, could involve the state owning new trains directly rather than leasing them from private sector finance houses. The Government has calculated that more than 2.5 billion pounds has been paid in dividends by the ROSCos over the past ten years, and the companies have sometimes been accused of charging excessive amounts for older rolling stock, the capital cost of which would have been largely written off.

Transport for London has taken the first step towards ending outsourcing, a practice which is vigorously opposed by the unions on the grounds that the employees of third party companies can have less favourable conditions. TfL has confirmed that a comprehensive 12-month pilot to examine how cleaning services at bus and Underground stations can be carried out by in-house staff is beginning today.

Avanti West Coast is to be renationalised on 7 March 2027. Transport secretary Heidi Alexander is expected to confirm this at the Labour Party Conference. The contract for AWC was the last of the old franchises to be awarded, to FirstGroup and Trenitalia, and started in December 2019. It was replaced by two short contracts as a result of the Covid pandemic coupled with performance problems at Avanti, and a formal National Rail Contract did not follow until October 2023.

The new station at Balgray will welcome its first passengers on Sunday. Built to serve one of East Renfrewshire’s growing communities, the station will provide convenient links to Glasgow. It will open ahead of schedule and within budget.

No trains are running between Reading and Didcot Parkway today, because of a gas leak in Didcot. The obstruction is affecting Great Western Railway and CrossCountry services, which are being replaced by road transport between Reading and Oxford. However, Great Western Railway is advising passengers to avoid the route entirely.

The RMT has staged a demonstration outside Marylebone station in London this morning, on the first full day of the renationalisation of Chiltern Railways. The RMT is opposing driver-only operation on the line, and the union's members are currently being balloted for a strike as part of its campaign,