RAILDATE 2024.11.15

Your free weekly guide to what's happening and what's new.

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Raildate is a collaboration between the editor and a number of contributors. Please think about supplying links that you spot. The contact email address is: raildate.co.uk@gmail.com

The latest Raildate is always at https://latest.raildate.co.uk

There are sections on:

• UK Rail News
• International Rail News
• Other Transport Modes
• The Weekly Poser (and the answer to last week's poser)

UK Rail News

East

• GB Railfreight to reintroduce service to Northamptonshire
• GBRf restart Felixstowe - Daventry service

London

• London cleaners reveal dirt in Tube seats
• GWR and RNLI moving wreaths to Paddington for remembrance ceremony
• Heat from tube tunnels could warm city offices in £1 billion network
• £4.6m accessibility improvements unveiled at Plumstead station
• All City of London trains digitally signalled

Midlands

• Birmingham rail passengers warned of 40 second door closures

North East

• Northumberland Line services will make ‘massive difference’ to locals, say conductors training to work on the line
• Tyne& Wear metro disrupted due to failure at Gosforth Depot
• Will new battery-powered trains replace diesel, and are they safe?
• Not quite the end of the line for old railway assets
• Hitachi Rail's intercity battery trial shows better than expected

North West

• UK government explores privately funded Birmingham-Manchester rail link

Northern Ireland

• Lapland Express Quiet Train

Scotland

• Crucial four-day engineering programme for West Highland Line
• Concrete beam problems on Cairngorm Funicular
• Cracks in new structures on tram route to Newhaven
• Veteran Glasgow Subway carriages saved and reinvented at new homes - including a nursery

South

• Swanage Railway to trial WiFi
• Dorset Council powers ahead with UK’s first WiFi-connected steam train

South East

• Community groups receive Southeastern Rail funding
• East West Rail: Eastern section consultation
• East West Rail developments
• South East Community rail groups receive thousands in rail grants
• Revised train services due to staff shortages
• Bluebell News November edition
• Network Rail and Southeastern alliance joins forces to get trains on the move quicker along the Hastings line
• Chiltern Railway Remembrance commemoration on Driver Trailer vehicle

West

• Luxury Travel – Britannic Explorer
• Britannic Explorer – first publicity
• https://elitetraveler.com/travel/experiences-travel/belmond-debuts-the-britannic-explorer
• Conversion of Somerset & Dorset line around Windsor Hill tunnel to a cycleway
• Plans for new stations at Devizes Parkway and Corsham progressed
• Exeter St Davids to Penzance via Dawlish Driver's Eye View

Yorkshire

• Reuse of former station in Hull
• Transpennine Route Upgrade reaches new milestone

National

• Government review of rail fare prosecutions
• New Cross Country trains service between Edinburgh and Cardiff
• Electric Traction costs for Network Rail
• New train service will link Wales, England and Scotland for first time

International Rail News

Estonia

• The Baltics wait for Europe's strategic new railway

Pakistan

• Bomb blast at Pakistan train station kills at least 24

Russia

• Russian railways loose out on Far East to Europe container traffic
• Work on Moscow Metro line 16

Spain

• Tram route opening in Barcelona

USA

• New hotel opened using former Salt Lake City station
• Free public transport in North American cities
• Milwaukee County Zoo's trains complete final laps

Other Transport Modes

Bus

• Bus collision in Manchester

Marine

• Hapag Lloyd christen new lpg fuelled ship
• Plans for a battery powered tug
• Hapag Lloyds order 24 new containerships

Credits

Thank you to this week's contributors.

• Alan Rushworth
• John Oliver
• Mike Price
• Neil Kearns
• Paul Tambini
• Richard Buckby
• Richard Maund

The Weekly Poser: Where is this?

DMUs from several eras at the bufferstops. Where is it?

Please send your answers to raildate.co.uk@gmail.com

Last week's Where is this?

Once a dense railway network, only two lines still exist. Where is it?

Answer: Springs Branch, SE Wigan. Congratulations are due to the following for their correct answers: Hugh Gillies-Smith, Colin Penfold, Richard Maund, Richard Hart, Chris Neale, Dave Goodyear, Blair Robinson, Andrew Treves, Jim Allwood, John Lacy, Jeremy Harrison, Tony Fox, Paul Hopper

Most of the lines were built by the L&NWR (becoming the LMSR) but the Great Central (later LNER) managed to find a single way into Wigan. The ending of coal mining led to major closures apart from the WCML and the newly electrified line to St Helens. Note how the WCML tracks change sides.

There has been a shed on this site since about 1847, going through numerous rebuilds, most recently in 2020. Here are two images from 1987 and 1992 showing the allocation of Class 40s vanishing.

SMALL PRINT

We welcome links to publicly available online news items and videos from anywhere in the world.  Despite its name, Raildate covers all transport modes, including also bus, tram, air, and marine.  

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The main Raildate website https://raildate.co.uk includes a history of Raildate by the founding editor Howard Sprenger and archived editions from 1996 to the present.

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©  Matthew Shaw 2024