Informed Sources
Wigan – Bolton: NEEP goes in hard
■ Civils costs halved
■ Bridge reconstruction slashed
■ Overdue renewals distort cost
■ Overheads exposed
Electrification: Prove you can deliver, demands DfT
■ TRU and MML electrification test cases for cost reduction claims
■ TDNS rolling programme on hold
■ ‘Stop moaning’, electrification proponents told
■ Network Rail Board goes full duckweed
Runners and riders reviewed
New Train TIN-watch promotion criteria amended as Lumo ‘803s’ graduate within three periods
800 Series – Hitachi’s remedial mods break cover
■ Substantial yaw damper arm mountings dwarf similar trains
■ Machined castings include bodyside stiffening
■ Alternative solutions reported on trial train
Chasing Will o’the WISP
■ Consultation on 30-year plan
■ Public competition for GBR HQ
■ Legislation lagging privatisation timescale
Network Rail slims ahead of GBR
■ Last decade’s headcount growth reversed
■ Redundancies to follow VSS
■ More savings from GBR efficiencies
Operators facing revenue-cost gap
■ Omicron reversed ridership revival
■ Treasury sustains revenue support
■ Costs continued to increase through 2020-21
Operators face ongoing new train woes
■ Alstom: Class 701 joins record lateness club
■ CAF: trams suffer weld failures
■ Hitachi: low availability compounds cracking issues
■ Stadler: passenger’s favourite tries maintainers
Table-toppers improving
Reliability growth in New Train TIN-watch is slow, but there are more graduates on the horizon