A Hegenscheidt wheel lathe has been installed at Allerton Traincare Centre in Liverpool as part of an £8·9m project between Network Rail and Northern Trains. It replaces an older machine and has doubled the wheel-lathing capacity of the depot.
A joint venture of WSP and Mott MacDonald has been appointed as Principal Designer for the East West Rail project. MWJV will lead key responsibilities under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, including planning, managing and monitoring pre-construction activities during the design and survey phases.
Govia Thameslink Railway and Siemens Mobility have upgraded one of the Class 717 EMUs used on Great Northern services to the latest ETCS Baseline 3 Release 2 specification. GTR is now operating all its services on the Northern City Line using ETCS, and it is planned that the signals will be physically removed in May.
Bolton-based Booth Industries has been awarded a £4·5m contract to supply pressure-rated cross-passage sliding fire doors for HS2.
Siemens Mobility has started work to install defibrillators purchased from the British Heart Foundation on all 51 TransPennine Express Class 185 DMUs by the end of March. They will be located in an emergency equipment cupboard in the middle of the train, and have step-by-step, spoken word instructions.
On February 18 the Tyne & Wear Metro began deploying its new Stadler trains on services between South Hylton, Sunderland and Newcastle International Airport, the latest step in the roll out of the fleet. This follows from the first of the 46 sets running in service on December 18. ‘It is not easy bringing a new fleet into use on such a busy route where the Metro runs in between inter-city trains, and I know the Nexus team has worked hard with Network Rail to make this possible’, said North East Mayor Kim McGuinness.
The Global Centre of Rail Excellence is to hold a demonstration day on March 20 to showcase 12 projects supported by the £7·4m Innovation in Railway Construction programme funded by the Department of Business & Trade through Innovate UK.
Network Rail has appointed AtkinsRéalis to lead its Property Digital Programme over the next three years. This includes procurement and management of IT to support NR’s property activities, with aims including increasing retail customer footfall and using heatmapping to gain insights into station usage patterns. ‘We will be able to drive efficiencies and increase revenue which is reinvested back into the railway’, said Hamish Kiernan, Commercial Director, Network Rail Property, on February 17. ‘The new systems and processes we will develop together will bring significant improvements for our tenants, and enable us to work simpler and better.’
RAIB makes two recommendations in its report into the derailment of a passenger train which struck a section of redundant rail left foul of the track near Walton-on-Thames in March 2024. The first is addressed to Colas Rail (in consultation with Network Rail) to review processes related to collecting redundant material when working on or near the line. The second is addressed to Network Rail (in consultation with RSSB) to review the rules and standards relating to how tasks delivered in complex work sites should be co-ordinated and to create a coherent process for confirming that the line is safe once work is complete. Two learning points reinforce the importance of arranging adequate site lighting and ensuring that guidance relating to superseded standards is removed from resource libraries when new standards are issued.
On February 14 Network Rail was fined £3·75m at Swansea Crown Court and ordered to pay £175 000 costs after pleading guilty to breaches of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 following an Office of Rail & Road prosecution relating to the deaths of two track workers at Margam, Port Talbot, in July 2019. RSSB CEO Mark Phillips said ’this tragic accident was a catalyst to completely rethink track worker safety. Our research and analysis helped Network Rail make significant safety improvements, with our statistics showing the number of track worker near misses with trains reducing from 60 per year in 2018/19 to 22 in 2023/4. This is still a priority issue for RSSB, and we are developing new solutions to protect track workers, including a predictive tool to reduce the risk of runaway machinery, changing standards to stop the highest risk activities and researching how geofencing can improve safety.’