London’s weekly railway news #88

A weekly round-up of London’s rail transport news…

London Underground

Tube drivers vote to go on strike over colleague sacking BBC News

Petition to extend Northern Line and Jubilee Line to Brockley Hill, Elstree and Bushey Heath in response to ‘awful’ train services Borehamwood Times

‘Safe carriages’ with CCTV footage should be installed in all Underground trains to tackle sex attacks and violence on the Tube, according to London Mayoral candidate Ivan Massow. Sputnik News

Hard-rockin’ radio station to broadcast from London tube, using public Wi-Fi Cnet

Anger over plans to close Finsbury Park station entrance for more than two years Ham&High

Recently engineers were called in by London Underground to reline the inside of the Victorian cast iron roof columns which, for more than 150 years, had taken rain water from the roof of Farringdon Station to below ground drainage systems. Premier Engineering

Crossrail

Jay Carver, the Lead Archaeologist on the Crossrail project, on the Bedlam burial ground where 3,000 skeletons are about to be excavated Culture24

Vince Cable promises to fight for Crossrail 2 in Twickenham and Teddington Local London

Crossrail work kicks off at Shenfield station Brentwood Gazette

Mainline/Overground

Go-ahead for new rail service from Beverley to London Hull Daily Mail

Protesters demonstrate outside Hackney Wick station against TfL’s removal of guards on trains Hackney Citizen

Unused station platforms could be opened for Heathrow rail link IanVisits

Network Rail has been ordered to review all its engineering work ahead of the Easter and May bank holidays to avoid the kind of disruption that blighted Christmas for travellers. Financial Times

Miscellaneous

Alleged sex attacker detained by passengers ‘after covering woman’s mouth and groping her in public’ Evening Standard

Old London tube trains lined up to replace Pacers would be ‘cheap and comfortable’ Northern Echo

Another “pub crawl as tube map” — this time from Cheltenham Gloucestershire Echo

The president of the RMT has left Labour and will contest a North seat for the Green Party. Chronicle Live

This is the moment an RMT boss lost the plot live in an “offensive” rant on LBC

Over 40 million fares on London public transport have been paid with contactless cards since it became available in September 2014, Computer Weekly

A trip in one of London’s “parliamentary trains” Diamond Geezer

…and finally, from the news archive, the £1.3 billion Jubilee Line extension is approved (it cost a tiny bit more than that). Thames News

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The image above is from July 2014: How Charing Cross railway station was nearly demolished