Reading Green Park station is set to open on May 27, with half-hourly services running north to Reading and south to Basingstoke. It is the first of three Great Western Railway stations opening this year, along with Portway Park & Ride in Bristol and Marsh Barton in Exeter.
Buckingham Group has been appointed to undertake restoration of the heritage listed canopy dating from 1910 at the Tyne & Wear Metro’s Whitley Bay station. The steelwork is to be refurbished, the glass replaced by more robust modern materials, and the glazing restored across the tracks as it was originally built.
Rail and multidisciplinary engineering company Taziker has doubled its heavy steel fabrication capacity through a £1m investment in a new production facility at Frontier Park in Blackburn. The site will also mass-produce FRP footbridges.
CrossCountry and Grand Central are conducting a joint private tender for the provision of outsourced Delay Repay Software. A framework agreement with Arriva UK Trains is planned, with separate contracts for the two operations and provision for the CrossCountry contract to transfer to any successor operator.
Govia Thameslink Railway has partnered with the Alzheimer’s Society to train staff as Dementia Friends who can recognise the signs of dementia and offer support.
SilverRail has appointed PR agency Harvard to support its growth plans with the UK market. ‘We’re at a pivotal point in our growth as a business and believe that Harvard is the perfect partner’, said Frederic Kalinke, Senior Director of Marketing & Strategy at the ticket sales and distribution platform developer.
Southeastern has reached the halfway point in the refurbishment of the 112 Class 375 Electrostar EMUs it leases from Eversholt Rail. The EMUs are receiving at-seat power sockets, including USB points, LED lighting and energy metering. Two units are being upgraded each week, with a team of 10 based at Southeastern’s Ashford Train Maintenance Centre on a five shift turnaround.
ZF Services UK recently hosted the MTU 1800 Porterbrook PowerPack User Group at its UK Rail Centre of Competence in Nottingham. Participants included staff from Porterbrook, MTU, Iarnród Éireann, LH Wabtec and West Midlands Trains. ‘The group plays an important role in pushing the industry forward and ensuring the supply chain works collaboratively’, said Rail Business Manager Simon Hargreaves..
London Overground concessionaire Arriva Rail London has appointed Jon Bradley as Head of Performance Delivery, a newly created role in the Operations team. He has previously held operations and performance roles at c2c, LOROL and MTR-Elizabeth Line.
Greater Anglia, Essex & South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership and the Campaign for Real Ale have launched a Rail Ale Trail featuring nine pubs on the Witham – Braintree line.
Colette Carroll, Market Director for Strategic Rail at Atkins, has been appointed to the Railway Industry Association board.
RAIB makes four recommendations to London Underground in its report into a track worker being struck and injured by a train near Chalfont & Latimer station in April 2022. The first relates to a review of the risks arising from working on the line during traffic hours; the second requires a review of such work with the aim of reducing it; the third seeks improvements to safety assurance and reporting; the fourth aims to ensure that places of safety are fit for purpose. Learning points relates to effective safety briefings and the importance of safety critical communication in an emergency.
