West Coast Rail 250 held its AGM and General Council meeting in Birmingham last Thursday. The Chair, Cllr Trevor Roberts, said “I am grateful for HS2 Ltd for hosting this meeting in their offices in central Birmingham. It was a very successful event, and I would like to thank all of those who participated, particularly […]
The General Council meeting of West Coast Rail 250 was held last Thursday (23rd February) in Liverpool. Members heard from Richard Scott of Avanti West Coast and Melissa Farmer from Transpennine Express on current train operation issues and their plans for the May and December 2023 timetables. The meeting was also updated on the activities
Avanti West Coast has launched a new timetable which reintroduces many services which were a casualty of the August step down. The new timetable started on 11 December, and now includes 40% more services per day. One of the headline changes is the re-instatement of 3 trains per hour on the London to Manchester route.
The Department for Transport has awarded Avanti West Coast a six month extension to the current Emergency Recovery Measures Agreement, taking the contract up to 1 April 2023. The current agreement was due to expire on 16 October 2022. The extension has been set to allow Avanti time to deliver its timetable recovery plan and
The DfT has published (9 June) consultation on the legislation that will be required to enable the rail transformation as set out in the William-Shapps Plan for Rail published in May 2021. This includes the creation of Great British Rail as “the guiding mind for the railways”. The consultation document can be found on the
The legislation required to build Phase 2b of High Speed 2 was introduced to Parliament today. When passed, the High Speed Rail (Crewe to Manchester) Bill will enable the new line between London and Birmingham / Crewe currently under construction to be extended to Manchester. The Government has also announced four changes from the original
The £2 billion contract to build the 225 mph trains for High Speed 2 has been awarded to a joint venture between Hitachi and Alstom. Whilst the majority of the work will be undertaken at plants in Newton Aycliffe and Derby, the West Coast economy will benefit from the assembly and maintenance of the train
The final report of the Government’s Union Connectivity Review, led by Sir Peter Hendy, was published today, and can be found at Union Connectivity Review (publishing.service.gov.uk). The report recognises the important role of rail, and includes the recommendation that the Government should “upgrade the West Coast Main Line north of Crewe to improve journey times
The long-awaited Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands was launched today by the Department for Transport. It has key implications for the West Coast Main Line corridor through setting out revisions to the High Speed 2 network and the approach to Northern Powerhouse Rail. The latter will have interfaces with the West Coast
The Government’s long-awaited Rail White Paper was published yesterday. It sets out proposals to create a new public body called Great British Railways, which will oversee a new passenger rail structure based on concessions instead of franchises. The White Paper also sets out plans for a major overhaul of the fares and ticketing system. Further
