London’s weekly railway news
A weekly round-up of London’s rail transport news…
London Underground
Severe delays hit the Northern Line on Thursday morning after a fire broke out at Tottenham Court Road Tube station during rush hour. Standard
Commuters enjoy snowball fight at West Ham station as Brits battle snow chaos LBC
TfL awards Bakerloo line extension consultancy contract ianVisits
Elizabeth line / Crossrail
Transport for London (TfL) “should do a 360 on themselves and the way that they influenced the [Crossrail] programme”, according to former Crossrail chief engineer Chris Dulake. NCE (£)
Lifschutz Davidson Sandiland’s 0.5ha redevelopment as part of McAslan + Partner’s new Bond Street Station is the exciting bit in this final link of the Elizabeth Line – and an enticer for more change RIBA Journal
Maintenance and safety staff working on the Elizabeth line have voted for strike action after they rejected a pay offer. ianVisits
Mainline / Overground
Scrapping first-class train seats makes travel even harder for disabled passengers, campaigners say i News
About 20 passengers forced to spend the night stranded on a “freezing” train as they tried to make their way home from London. ITV
A rail passenger who paid an “eye-watering” £589 for a return train ticket from Brighton to Wales has hit out at operator Avanti West Coast for cancelling parts of his journey and providing “a masterclass in poor service”. The Guardian
A former Conservative minister has claimed she crammed herself into a luggage rack to sit down on a packed train journey between her constituency and London. ITV
Ministers think trains are just too much bother. That’s why they are so relaxed about the strikes The Guardian
First of £1bn trains to run in 2023, South Western Railway says BBC News
Rail strikes could last ‘indefinitely’, warns RMT leader Mick Lynch Standard
Miscellaneous
The BBC has been accused of “blowing” licence fee-payers’ money by advertising on the London Underground that it is showing the World Cup. Telegraph (£)
Climate campaigners have asked operators of the London underground and the Rail Network to remove ads that promote cars to encourage more people to choose more sustainable transport. ELN
Jewellery store manager charged over fatal crash on tracks at Park Royal tube station Metro
Slow travel: Why London to Stockholm by train is worth the day-long journey Lonely Planet
Four business executives have appeared in court charged with defrauding London Underground by submitting invoices for non-existent maintenance work. Court News (£)
The latest Programmes and Investment Committee report from TfL has outlined some of the works that have been carried out on London’s rail network in recent months. ianVisits
Warren Street smells of “sooty milk” while Lambeth North conjures “extreme mouse”, according to a new chart of tube station aromas. Londonist
Once again, the rail industry’s “double arrow”, the symbol that has come completely to mean “railway” in Britain, has been given a facelift. The Beauty of Transport
Hackney borough wins High Court dispute with TfL over railway arch rent Local Government Lawyer
And finally: The trains that changed the way we travel in 2022 CNN
The image above is from December 2013: Unbuilt London: A roller-coaster monorail under the streets of London
6 tph for West Ealing confirmed from May 2023
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Sorry forgot link
Re Avanti’s service and timetable. The benefits of mobile phones. A friend booked on-line a financial advantageous advance ticket from Euston to Edinburgh for Fri 9 Dec, on the 16.43 train. Although on the ‘system’, no-one told her the train had been retimed to 16.23 by at least the Tuesday. On my advice she was there in time to catch it, only to find the on-train recorded announcements that it was an Edinburgh train were being corrected. It was now going to Glasgow due to staff shortages. Nearing Carlisle, passengers were told to change for an Edinburgh train which was ‘behind’. It was – 70 minutes behind if on time.I advised going through to Glasgow then Edinburgh was just as quick and the train from Carlisle to Edinburgh was likely to be crowded, as the previous one had been cancelled. At Glasgow she was advised that a stopping train from Central would arrive at about the same time as a fast from Queen Street – completely wrong. And the stopping train didn’t start its journey until 40 minutes late. Total delay, 2 hours. Discuss….