Crossrail facing delays October 13, 2010 LONDON’S flagship Crossrail scheme could be delayed by a year in the face of government pressure to cut costs on the £15.9bn project. The new rail link across the capital was due to open in 2017, but could now be delayed to 2018, it emerged yesterday. It is understood that officials have told engineers to [...]
Russian rail group plans London IPO October 12, 2010 RUSSIAN transport group TransContainer is poised to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in Moscow and London, in a bid to raise as much as $500m (£317m). TransContainer, a subsidiary of the state-owned Russian Railways group, will float 35 per cent of its equity, or 4,863,170 shares. Last week, Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin signed [...]
Tube bosses sit down with unions to avert more strikes October 12, 2010 LONDON Underground (LU) bosses went back to the drawing board with trade unions RMT and the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) yesterday in a bid to avert two more looming strikes and put an end to the long running dispute over staffing levels. The three parties met at conciliation service Acas yesterday afternoon to try [...]
Stobart signs Aer Arann deal October 11, 2010 TRANSPORT group Stobart has signed a five-year deal with Ireland’s Aer Arann to use its Southend Airport. The deal will see Stobart invest €2.5m (£2.2m) into the deal and will see the Irish airline operate flights out of the London airport starting next March. Expectations are that passenger volumes will grow to 300,000 a year. [...]
France demands re-think of Eurostar’s train order October 10, 2010 FRANCE has demanded a re-think of a £700m order for new trains from Eurostar after the Channel Tunnel train operator gave the deal to German manufacturer Siemens. The French government claimed the 10 e-320 trains that Eurostar is buying do not meet tunnel safety rules. Unlike Eurostar’s current trains, which have electric locomotives at each [...]
London braced as Liverpool fans plan High Court protest October 10, 2010 ANGRY Liverpool supporters are planning to descend on central London in their hundreds this week when the club’s ownership is decided in the High Court. Reds fans intend to travel to the capital by the coach-load in order to vent their disgust at unpopular owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett outside the Royal Courts of [...]
London Underground set to cut an extra 400 jobs October 7, 2010 LONDON Under ground (LU) is to axe up to 400 further permanent back-office staff in a bid to cut costs and improve efficiency. These cuts come on top of LU’s plans to reduce 800 ticket office jobs, which is currently at the heart of a bitter dispute with trade unions RMT and Transport Salaried Staffs’ [...]
Flats for the Eurocrat: a Brussels bargain October 7, 2010 IF YOU’RE moving to Brussels, it’s unlikely to be for the Belgian beer, the moules-frites and the chocolates. Most Britons relocate to the Belgian capital for work and join the 100,000-strong expat community of European Union workers, lobbyists and lawyers for at least a year or two. While most expats tend to rent when they [...]
Boris calls for tougher laws October 4, 2010 BORIS Johnson has called for a change to Britain’s trade union laws, in a bid to prevent a repeat of yesterday’s crippling Tube strikes. The London mayor used his speech at the Tory party conference in Birmingham to call for new legislation, which would force trade unions to win the support of 50 per cent [...]
TfL beats chaos as Tube keeps running October 4, 2010 TRANSPORT for London (TfL) operated 40 per cent of its Tube services yesterday as the second 24-hour strike launched by trade unions RMT and Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), hit the capital. The transport group said that 10 of the 11 lines that make up the Underground network ran services yesterday as the strike, which [...]