Rail freight faces challenges as coal disappears
A day in April marked Britain’s first without using coal to generate electricity. Wind and solar power played their part but burning gas shouldered the bulk of electricity generation that…
Strikes are a stalemate where both sides must make the right moves
As the hours ticked down to 1100 on November 11 1918, soldiers continued being killed on the Western Front. Germany had signed an armistice early that morning but its implementation…
NR hindered by DfT’s intervention on investment plans
A splash in The Independent newspaper on March 31 thrust into wider public perception a problem for Network Rail that’s been quietly worrying the railway for some time. The problem…
DfT’s decisions will keep external advice to a minimum
Back in September 2011, Network Rail published initial industry plans for England and Wales and for Scotland. The plans were one of several important milestones in ORR’s periodic review work…
Now is the time for rail bodies to get their high-speed Act together
There’s an incredible amount of detail within the High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Act 2017 – better known as the HS2 Act. It weighs in at 452 pages and provides…
Automatic for the people? ATO’s positives and pitfalls
Thursday February 16 was a day of irony. ASLEF revealed that drivers working for Southern had rejected the deal the union had presented them. Meanwhile, in the Institution of Mechanical…
RMT plans to fight more battles… but the war looks lost
There’s always been a tension between the front and rear of a train. It’s some decades since freight trains lost their guards and the vans in which they rode on…
Operators need to be less conservative and more ‘canny’
Sometimes we make a simple thing sound difficult. Take this phrase from a recent report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers: “On-demand door-to-door mobility solutions”. For context the report is…
Will more flexible HLOS restore confidence in the railway?
This year should see governments in Westminster and Holyrood reveal what they want from Britain’s railway over the five years from 2019. With the rail industry’s love of jargon, acronyms…
Time flies by…
I’m not a train driver. I have sat in a cab and made a train move. I’ve even made one stop in roughly the right place. That’s far from being…