We make no apologies for returning to the subject of HS2 which was cut back as it “no longer reflected post-lockdown changes in travel”. Yet, as Matt Atkins describes, recent ORR figures show a trend of increasing rail passenger numbers. The last quarter’s 21% increase brings journeys up to...

A total of 417 million rail passenger journeys were recorded in Great Britain between October and December 2023, according to the Office of Road and Rail (ORR). The organisation’s report ‘Passenger rail usage October to December 2023’ shows a 20% increase on the 348 million journeys in the same quarter...

On 20 February, the Government published its Draft Rail Reform Bill. This proposes the creation a new Integrated Rail Body (IRB) that brings together decisions on infrastructure and train operations. The IRB would become Great British Railways (GBR) as proposed in the Williams-Shapps report that was published in May...

In the Parliamentary debate on the cancellation of HS2 phase 2, Transport Minister Mark Harper claimed that what remains of HS2 will deliver “a massive increase in capacity to the West Coast Main Line (WCML)” by providing 250,000 seats a day. This figure was subsequently repeated by the Prime...

The forecast date for initial HS2 services between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street is between 2029 and 2033. Although this may seem some time away, this year HS2 hits peak construction with work well underway and a workforce of 30,000 at 350 active sites. This work is being...

Of HS2’s 208 route km, 52.2km is in tunnels. There will be 44.3km of twin bored tunnels comprising of Euston (7.3km); Northolt (13.6km); Chiltern (16.0km) Long Itchington Wood (1.6km); and Bromford (5.8km), as well as six cut and cover ‘green’ tunnels totalling 8km. In addition, an 850-metre logistics tunnel...

Along its 208 route km, HS2 requires over 50 viaducts of which 16 are over 300 metres long. One of these is the 3.4km Colne Valley viaduct which will soon be the UK’s longest railway viaduct. Less newsworthy is the huge amount of earthworks needed to create Britain’s first...

As is often the way with incidents and accidents, it is not one failure alone that is the cause but a series of isolated factors which can together conspire to lead to an unhappy outcome. This was certainly so in the case of a collapsed wing wall which was...

Sekisui manufactures synthetic wood baulks made from Fibre-reinforced Foamed Urethane (FFU). Network Rail engineers installed the first FFU baulks and sleepers as replacements for traditional hardwood on military canal bridges in Kent during 2014. The FFU product was first introduced on Japanese Railways in 1980 and early installations are...

The commitment made in the UK Government’s Decarbonising Transport Plan for an ambitious programme of railway electrification is both complex and challenging. With progress sat at just over a third of the 13,000km of track in Great Britain’s rail network electrified, the rollout required is extensive. To achieve its...

Rail Engineer has reported on the extensive West Midlands resignalling a number of times over the years, issue 160 (February 2019) covered the completion of phase 6 between Birmingham New Street (BNS) and Birmingham International stations. So, we were delighted to meet up with main contractor Siemens to learn...