Hitachi to buy Thales’ rail signalling division in £1.4bn deal August 4, 2021 Thales and Hitachi are entering exclusive negotiations on the sale of Thales’ railway signalling business valued at €1.66bn (£1.4bn). Thales is carving out its Ground Transportation Systems Global Business Unit (GTS), which the company says employs 9,000 people across the world. GTS’s rail technology also offers train control systems and face collection services. It benefits [...]
More staff yearn for their pre-pandemic commutes as return to looms July 12, 2021 More staff yearn for their pre-pandemic commutes as return to looms
Government lacks ‘convincing’ plan to get travellers back on trains July 7, 2021 The government does not have a “convincing and timely plan for encouraging passengers back to the railway” after the pandemic, a new report from the public spending watchdog has found. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said that the lack of direction on this issue from the Department for Transport (DfT) risked pushing people back into [...]
Government should ‘rip up the rule’ book on rail fares June 23, 2021 The government needs to go further when it comes to rail ticketing reform and “rip up the rulebook”, or else businesses will suffer, a trade body has warned today. Jane Gratton, head of people policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, welcomed the newly announced flexible season tickets, but said the whole fares system needed [...]
New flexible season tickets on sale from today June 21, 2021 Commuters can from this morning purchase new flexible season tickets designed to allow people to travel two or three days a week. The new flexible season ticket will allow passengers to travel for eight days in any month-long period, and can be used from 28 June. National Rail say that the ticket will offer a [...]
Rail industry puts service and job cuts on the line amid warnings that government support ‘not unlimited’ June 15, 2021 The rail industry is taking steps to trim services and cut jobs in a bid to save £2bn a year as it warned that the government’s current support for the sector was “not unlimited”. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March last year, ministers have spent over £10bn – £800m per month – propping [...]
Great British Railways: an eerie reminder of state ownership detested by free marketeers and socialists alike May 21, 2021 The current amount of taxpayers’ money being paid to operate and maintain the railways is unsustainable, the authors of the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail report wrote in the opening pages. The railways lack a guiding focus on customers, are too fragmented, too complicated, and too expensive to run. Instead, the authors herald a new age, [...]
Rail reforms: the Fat Controller, new fares, and a ‘farewell’ to franchising May 20, 2021 After years of anticipation, and not a few false starts, the government today announced its much-lauded plan to reform the UK’s railways. Complete with pledges to “fix the broken system” and deliver a better service “for the passenger”, the white paper presents a vision of the country’s rail network that is a clear break from [...]
Flexible season tickets on sale from 21 June under new rail plan May 20, 2021 Flexible season tickets will go on sale from 21 June as part of newly announced reforms that represent the most comprehensive overhaul of the UK’s railways in decades. The long-awaited Williams-Shapps review, which was first mooted nearly four years ago, has finally been published by the Department for Transport (DfT). The paper proposes a number [...]
Ministers set to reveal radical rail shake-up May 15, 2021 Ministers are set to reveal the biggest overhaul of the UK’s rail system in three decades, with reforms including the introduction of flexible season tickets and pay-as-you-go travel across the network. The coming week will see the publication of a long-awaited white paper on the future of the country’s rail network, the Times reported. Chief [...]