Railfuture was delighted to sponsor the very interesting and successful 2019 Transport Masters Prize Award Presentation awards evening event at the University of the West Of England (UWE) with Railfuture's Honorary President Christian Wolmar proving to be the 'top entertainment'. Photo: from left, Professor Graham Parkhurst (Director of UWE’s Centre for Transport and Society), Christian Wolmar (Railfuture President), Wendy Thorne (Railfuture director), and Professor John Parkin CEng FICE FCIHT FCILT (Professor of Transport Engineering and Deputy Director, Centre for Transport and Society UWE).

Railfuture has submitted its initial response to the Williams Rail Review, with the theme of incentivising the rail industry to work efficiently on behalf of its customers. These passengers at Euston want to feel that the industry cares for them, and that disruption is a rarity rather than the norm. Photo Network Rail.

The initial strategic challenge

Railfuture Policy Director Ian Brown contends that rail cannot make any meaningful contribution to growing the North’s economy, or even realise the benefits of new rolling stock and services about to be delivered, without investment in core routes and core stations to enable a further doubling of journeys over the next 15 years. Crowds on the only two through platforms at Manchester Piccadilly demonstrate the need for investment in extra capacity linking Chester, Liverpool, Preston, Manchester, Sheffield, Bradford, Leeds and Hull – photo by Maria Whelan, from Twitter.

New ticket gates cause a furore in Portsmouth. Portsmouth Harbour gateline: pass down to the end and turn left to access the ferry terminal.

Signal interlocking, whether mechanical or computerised, underpins public trust in the safety of the railway. But the industry has lost public trust in its service delivery, with the ongoing industrial dispute and the timetable fiasco. Image Network Rail. Railfuture challenges the rail industry and government to rebuild that trust in 2019 by fulfilling ten customer demands.

Athens is a great city to visit and travel around. Despite the debt crisis but stimulated earlier by the 2004 Olympics the city has an excellent transport system with innovation precipitated by the lack of finance. We can learn from this for the Rail Review. The Athens card is all mode and comes as a contactless ticket for single journeys and day tickets and longer periods. Note the pictogram of modes available and the Metro showing at a lower level. It includes bike parking. All photos by Ian Brown for Railfuture.

The new tram-train service between Sheffield and Rotherham opened to passengers on 25 October 2018. Cathedral-bound tram-train 201 pauses to change from train-mode to tram-mode on the new Tinsley chord. The former Great Central line from Woodburn Junction to Rotherham Central can be seen in the background - photo by Robert Pritchard.

The Rail Review – what are the facts? A briefing by Ian Brown CBE FCILT, Railfuture Policy Director, on the Rail Review announced by Chris Grayling on 20 September 2018. Image: DfT.

Briefing by Ian Brown CBE FCILT, Railfuture Policy Director, on the effects of climate change and the need for investment in rail to provide sustainable transport which will help to reduce climate change. Image by iStock.

Toby Hart was a Network Rail train planner based at Leeds. This letter is his submission to the Rail Delivery Group and the Office of Rail and Road inquiry into the disruption following the May 2018 timetable changes. It backs up Railfuture’s contention that Network Rail’s reorganisation of the timetable planning function to reduce costs (at DfT’s direction) and centralise at Milton Keynes contributed to the failure of the timetable through a loss of expertise and insufficient iterations of the timetable process to resolve conflicts in the proposed timetable. Image: Official TfGM Twitter announcement on 19 May 2018.

The next major step in restoring rail links between Oxford and Cambridge was taken this week (27 July 2018) when Network Rail applied for legal permission to rebuild a railway across central England.

Railfuture briefing by Ian Brown, Railfuture Policy Director, on the December timetable ‘cutbacks’ announced by the Rail Delivery Group today, 10 July 2018. Image by About Manchester

Power to award rail franchises in Wales was devolved to the Welsh Government in 2017. This power has been used for the first time to award the Wales and Borders passenger franchise to Keolis and partner Amey to operate the franchise from October 2018 to 2033. New Stadler tram-train to be procured for South Wales Metro, including street running to a new station named ‘Flourish’ in Cardiff Bay – image from Transport for Wales presentation.