NEWS
New freight operator licensed
Devon and Cornwall Railways has become the country’s newest licensed freight operator.
When the Office of Rail Regulation granted the licence and SNRP, president of Devon and Cornwall Railways, Ed Ellis, said it reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to competition between open-access freight operators.
He added: “We are pleased the ORR has, after careful evaluation, enabled DCR to take the next steps toward implementing our strategy of becoming an effective, responsive operator focused on atypical and innovative flows in the UK rail freight market.”
DCR is a subsidiary of British American Railway Services, Ltd.
Round-the-clock effort to resignal Reading M
ore than 250 engineers worked flat out to
resignal 100 miles of railway and install a 1,000-tonne rail bridge over a dual carriageway in just a few days.
It was the first major engineering project of the six-year Reading Station upgrade, aimed at unclogging a long-term bottleneck and improving both punctuality and capacity on the Great Western mainline and the whole rail network.
Bill Henry, Network Rail project director for the Reading rebuild, said: “The work we’ve completed is the launchpad for a huge programme of improvements for Reading’s railway.
“Over the coming years we’ll build a bigger, better station and make substantial changes to the track layout to improve journeys
Roll on more rolling stock G
reater Manchester transport leaders have made new calls for more train carriages in the region.
They were responding to the report on rail overcrowding by the Public Accounts Committee, which said the current situation was “unacceptable” but seemed set to get even worse.
Councillor Ian Macdonald, who chairs Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority, said: “Many of the findings come as no surprise to us here in Greater Manchester. We have long been pushing the DfT to provide us with more rail carriages to ease the serious overcrowding on many of Greater Manchester’s busiest commuter routes.
“Overall, Northern Rail is now carrying over one-third more
passengers than it was when the franchise was let to them on a ‘no-growth’ basis.
“Longer rail franchises of around 10 years, which took into account clear projections of service demand and included appropriate performance checks, could allow train operators and the DfT to address overcrowding much more effectively.
“In the meantime, we need extra carriages to address current, as well as future, increases in demand for rail travel. Too many commuters in Greater Manchester already suffer unacceptable overcrowding on poor quality rolling stock – which in turn discourages people
from using the rail network to its full potential.
“We will continue to lobby the government to ensure that Greater Manchester sees the long-term rail investment it needs for the north west’s economy to thrive and grow.”
Unfair But Cllr Macdonald’s
counterpart in West Yorkshire, Chris Greaves, said it was “unfair” to put all the blame on Northern Rail, because of the huge growth in passenger numbers.
Public Accounts Committee chairwoman Margaret Hodge
“ The mindset in the rail industry that believes improvements can be achieved only with extra subsidy must change.”
6 | rail technology magazine Dec/Jan 11
MP said: “There is no incentive for the rail industry to supply extra capacity without additional public subsidy. The DfT should, for future franchises, require operators to take measures themselves to avoid overcrowding and to meet the costs of doing so.
“The mindset in the rail industry that believes improvements can be achieved only with extra subsidy must change.”
But an ATOC spokesman said: “The delay in tackling capacity has coincided with the growing involvement of civil servants in buying new trains. The best way to get value for money and ensure extra capacity is delivered when and where it is needed would be to return to a situation where train operators take a greater role in ordering new rolling stock.”
on the entire Western route, from London to Penzance and Swansea.
“Our people put in 16,000 hours over ten days to deliver this work on time, and some two years of planning have gone into keeping disruption to the railway and road network to a minimum.”
The bulk of the work involved transferring signalling to the new signal centre at Didcot and replacing an out-of-date rail bridge to the west of Reading Station with a huge new one capable of serving the extra platforms being installed.
The station had to be closed for
much of the works period. Mr Henry said local people had been impressed with the speedy working and that 30 people spent all of New Year’s Eve watching the engineers install the rail bridge. Hundreds more stopped by to watch other parts of the works.
Mark Hopwood, managing director of First Great Western, said it coped well with the station closure thanks to diversions and bus replacements and added: “This is a significant first step in a major project. I am pleased this phase has been completed on time and the railway is fully open for business again.”
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