On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:05:20 +0200, Rolf Mantel <
news@hartig-mantel.de> wrote:
Am 27.04.2026 um 14:13 schrieb Recliner:
An article by Diana Blamires, co-founder of the East West Rail Action Group >>
It costs œ1 million a year to guard Winslow station, a new stopping point
on the East West Rail line that has never opened
^^^^
'not yet' might be mroe appropriate
What's frustrating is that the line and the one new station were completed in 2024. The expectation had been that
scheduled passenger services would start shortly afterwards, but, 18 months later, there's not even a date for them.
Chiltern was expected to be the operator long before the line opened, but the DfT was late to confirm it, for unknown
reasons. That delayed the provision of stock and driver training.
Chiltern didn't have enough trains of its own, so is subleasing a small fleet of new 2-car class 196 DMUs from West
Midlands Trains. These have been used for driver training, and the intention is to operate them as DOO, as with all
other Chiltern services. As usual, the unions are objecting, but I thought that had been settled. Chiltern has also
asked for changes to be made to the trains (I'm not sure what), and for the sole new station, Winslow, to be modified. I
think that has been finished, but a further modification was added to the list: longer platforms, to suit 5-car trains.
But there's been no coherent explanation from either Chiltern or the DfT for the apparent indefinite delay in scheduled
passenger services (there have been a number of charter trains, and of course, plenty of driver training trains).
Delay in railway projects is not restricted to the UK. Famous
significanlty larger situations include:
When the BER airport opening was delayed, the train operators had to run >regular ghost trains because the ventilation system relied on trains >exchanging the air in the tubes by driving through
I didn't know that!
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