Rail.co

Crossrail confirms Custom House station bidders

A. Samuel — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:52:58 +0000

Crossrail has confirmed the shortlist for the £35 million Custom House station. The four shortlisted bidders for the contract are Laing O’Rourke, Hochtief UK in a joint venture with its German arm, Costain and Geoffrey Osborne Limited. The new Crossrail Custom House station, located in east London, is the only above ground station within Crossrail’s [...]

Four men charged following theft from railway

A. Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:53:37 +0000

Four men have been arrested and charged with theft by British Transport Police (BTP) following an incident near Bridgend in South Wales on Tuesday, 21 February. BTP officers were responding to a report of a suspected theft at a storage compound near the railway at Water Street, Pyle. Four men were arrested at the scene [...]

Murphy innovation improves production rates

The Rail Engineer Team — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:11:45 +0000

Written by J. Murphy & Sons Limited Innovative construction techniques used by J. Murphy & Sons Limited on a tunnel brickwork repair project for Network Rail, not only overcame local difficulty and produced time and cost savings, but are now set to improve production rates at other sites, as Paul Mohan from the project team, [...]

Sporting heroes back Translink NI Railways & Samaritans campaign

A. Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:00:28 +0000

Translink NI Railways and Samaritans have joined forces to launch ‘We’re In Your Corner’; a hard-hitting campaign to promote the charity’s emotional support services and help prevent suicides on the local rail network. The new partnership also provides support for Translink employees who find themselves in challenging and highly sensitive circumstances when dealing with someone [...]

Romsey rail bridge reconstruction set to begin

A. Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:38:53 +0000

A three-month project to replace the bridge in Romsey which carries the A27 (Southampton Road) over the railway to enable larger freight containers to be transported by rail is scheduled to start on Saturday 31 March 2012. The work, which will require the road to be closed, was originally scheduled to start in December 2011, [...]

Prime Minister visits Crossrail site

A. Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:10:51 +0000

Prime Minister David Cameron visited Crossrail’s Westbourne Park site in west London recently to view the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) ahead of Crossrail tunnelling commencing next month. The Prime Minister was joined by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to meet engineers and construction workers and to hear more about tunnelling preparations for Europe’s largest civil [...]

Major trackwork on Sydney’s South Coast Line

A. Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:00:31 +0000

Trackwork will be taking place on Sydney’s South Coast Line for two weeks from Monday 27 February to Sunday 11 March. Buses will replace weekday trains between Bomaderry (Nowra) and Dapto from Monday 27 February to Friday 9 March and between Bomaderry (Nowra) and Wollongong on early morning weekday services from 12.15am to 4am. Trains [...]

Nippon Sharyo awarded rolling stock contract by Virginia Railway Express

A. Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:00:36 +0000

Virginia Railway Express (VRE) has awarded a contract to Nippon Sharyo and Sumitomo Corporation of America for 50 Gallery-type Bi-level passenger cars. The contract price is $21 million for the base order which is to supply 8 cars, and includes an option to purchase an additional 42 cars. The total contract amount with the option [...]

Fenchurch farewell for Trevor

Andy-Milne — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:00:26 +0000

Trevor Capps, who worked for c2c at Fenchurch Street station in London, is retiring after over 48 years in the rail industry. Trevor joined the railway in 1963 at Southend East station. For the majority of his career he has worked on station platforms, despatching trains and looking after passengers. He has also worked stints [...]

49 killed in Argentina train crash

A. Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:36:10 +0000

Officials have said that at least 49 people have been killed and over 600 injured in a train crash in Argentina. The incident, at Once station in Buenos Aires, happened during morning rush hour as the train hit the end of the platform. Transportation Secretary JP Schiavi said: “We assume that there was some fault [...]

Dangerous delivery lorries turned away from Crossrail sites

A. Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:30:02 +0000

Lorries that don’t comply with new safety rules to protect cyclists will be ‘turned away’ from Crossrail construction sites, Crossrail has said. We reported earlier this month how Keyline has upgraded 14 of its vehicles (pictured) to meet the new specifications. The project is backing a campaign for safer delivery lorries after a spate of [...]

Bilfinger Berger awarded major rail contracts in Berlin

A. Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:03:02 +0000

Bilfinger Berger has won two major contracts for the expansion of Berlin’s public transport system. The contracts include the construction of a new underground rail line in the centre of the German capital and a link between the main station and the urban rail ring. They have a combined value of around €230 million. The new [...]

Tower disappears

Andy-Milne — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:00:15 +0000

The Stephenson Tower has finally disappeared from Birmingham’s city skyline. The demolition of the 22 storey 1960s residential tower block is the first stage towards the construction of the new John Lewis department store which gets underway later in the spring. Sitting above Platform 12 of New Street station, in the heart of the city [...]

Numbers soar at Parkway

Andy-Milne — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:00:18 +0000

East Midlands Parkway is celebrating its third birthday. Record numbers of passengers have used the station in the last year. Since 2009, the station’s first year of operation, the number of passengers travelling from East Midlands Parkway has increased by almost 120 per cent, soaring to around 450,000 journeys. The station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, [...]

Dimboola to Rainbow rail line reopens

A. Samuel — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:22:21 +0000

The reopening of the Dimboola to Rainbow line with the first grain train meant that up to 100,000 extra tonnes of Victorian grain would move annually by rail, Parliamentary Secretary for Transport Edward O’Donohue has said. Mr O’Donohue said that it was exciting to watch the first Pacific National grain train depart. “Under the previous [...]

Construction begins on Orlando’s SunRail project

A. Samuel — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:08:21 +0000

Construction of Orlando’s SunRail commuter rail project has officially begun after a ground breaking ceremony. Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad, Congressman John Mica, Congresswoman Corinne Brown and Federal Transit Administration Regional Administrator Dr. Yvette Taylor joined local funding partners and several hundred supporters at the future home of the SunRail station in Altamonte [...]

Network Rail to sell plant subsidiary

A. Samuel — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:31:49 +0000

Network Rail Infrastructure Limited has announced it intends to sell its subsidiary, Network Rail (NDS-Plant) Limited, only four months after setting it up. The NDS-Plant division was set up in November after Network Rail ‘rescued’ equipment supplier Hydrex from administration. Hydrex was the largest provider of road-rail vehicles to the industry and ‘vital for Network [...]

Linlithgow Station’s 167 year old photo

David Shirres — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:00:19 +0000

A new information panel has been installed at Linlithgow Station to record its claim to be the first station in the world to have been photographed. The photograph was taken in 1845 by David Octavius Hill. The panel also celebrates more recent additions to the station. These include a mural of the annual Marches procession, [...]

Record run for St Pancras

Andy-Milne — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:11:52 +0000

Proving that high speed railways are good for business, HS1 Ltd, owner of St Pancras International, is reporting all time high retail sales and footfall in the three weeks before Christmas 2011. Sales rose 20 per cent in the run up to Christmas compared with the same period last year. Footfall was up by 18 per [...]

Royal Salute for Rail Britannia

Andy-Milne — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:03:57 +0000

HRH Prince Charles braved torrential rain at Wakefield Kirkgate station to rename 70000 Britannia. The locomotive had just hauled the Royal Train on which the prince, a keen supporter of railways, had travelled. Greeting the many local children who had turned out to see him, Prince Charles made his way along the platform with Pete [...]

Square deal for King’s Cross

Andy-Milne — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:50:45 +0000

Plans to create a paved square with trees in front of King’s Cross station have been given the go ahead. The design, by architects Stanton Williams, will also reveal the Victorian Grade I listed station façade for the first time in 150 years. In place of the current 1970s concourse extension will be a 7,000 [...]

Bike thrown onto rail tracks & hit by train

A. Samuel — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:44:33 +0000

British Transport Police (BTP) officers are appealing for information after a train struck a mountain bike that had been deliberately thrown onto the railway line at Yate station, near Bristol, on Sunday 19 February. Sgt Cliff Parker, of BTP, said the incident could have had serious consequences as the bike was struck by a high [...]

University launches innovative emergency planning degrees

A. Samuel — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:27:16 +0000

A University campus will be transformed into an ‘emergency village’ to launch two innovative degrees, one of which focuses on dealing with major incidents on the transport network. More than 25 emergency vehicles, including a helicopter and a boat, will be at the University of Wolverhampton for the event on Tuesday, 28 February 2012, which [...]

London 2012 security drill to take place

A. Samuel — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:03:16 +0000

A major safety exercise to test the emergency service and Government response to a terrorist incident during the Olympic and Paralympics Games period will be begin today in central London. It is thought over 2,000 personnel will take part in the event which will test their response to a simulated attack on the London Underground [...]

India’s rail network claims 15,000 lives each year

A. Samuel — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:01:56 +0000

A government committee has said around 15,000 people die trying to cross railway tracks in India each year. The High Level Safety Review Committee said it was a ‘massacre’ that was being ignored by railway authorities. Their report claims that the committee’s previous safety recommendations have been ‘ignored’. Recommendations include replacing all railroad crossings with bridges [...]