18 December 2024
The government proposes to return most passenger rail services to public ownership. This will not necessarily improve services. Key areas are left out, so the industry will remain fragmented.
Bristol celebrated a new station at the end of September. This is the result of a long and determined campaign, which has further improvements in its sights.
Rail workers in most train operating companies have voted to accept the national pay deal...
22 October 2024
Rail workers in most train operating companies have voted to accept the national pay deal. This ends over two years of intermittent strikes and other industrial action.
Train drivers’ union Aslef has reached agreement with the incoming Labour government to resolve a pay dispute in most of the passenger train operators. It has involved 18 days of strikes.
Journey times have to be shortened, new timetables and track are needed, but there’s no commitment from Labour or Conservatives to the planning and investment required…
9 April 2024
Rail passenger numbers have mushroomed despite government policy that in effect imposes managed decline.
4 March 2024
Rail workers in London have won a significant backdated pay rise from their employer, Arriva. The dispute was settled only after the threat of strike action.
25 January 2024
Train drivers continue their fight for pay and conditions with a round of strikes. Train operating companies, backed by the government, are not even negotiating. One company trying to use new minimum service level laws quickly climbed down.
27 December 2023
The fallout from the government strategy to switch investment from rail to road continues. It prefers promoting autonomous cars to developing rail and other public transport.
13 November 2023
Determined action by RMT rail union members has forced the government to make a new offer through the train operating companies to settle their long-running pay and conditions dispute.
2 November 2023
The government has scrapped plans to close rail ticket offices in the face of overwhelming opposition from rail workers and passengers – a victory for people power.
Britain has to continue to modernise, and that means new infrastructure. That is expensive. But the alternative is to allow capitalism’s decline to take the working class with it…
East-West Rail is a project currently renewing and rebuilding a largely disused rail line between Oxford and Cambridge.
To fit with the government’s scaled-down plans the station at Old Oak Common will have to be completely redesigned with more platforms to act as a terminus rather than a through station as originally planned
US private equity firm, I Squared Capital, has bought bus and rail operator Arriva in a deal worth about $1.69 billion, including debts.
19 October 2023
RMT denounces sale of Arriva bus and train operations by the German state railway to US private equity.
2 October 2023
The government is planning further cuts to the HS2 rail project. This sabotage puts engineering jobs at risk as well as undermining the transport benefits.
1 September 2023
Rail workers are stepping up the fight to save ticket offices after the end of the sham consultation at the end of August.
Protests have been taking place across Britain against plans to shut our railway ticket offices. The action is part of the RMT union’s continuing campaign “Save Ticket Offices”.
21 August 2023
Sustained campaigning has revived a Bristol rail line. The first of several new stations opened in July.
20 July 2023
Train operating companies are running a short consultation on plans to close railway ticket offices. Rail workers are campaigning in opposition.
11 July 2023
Nearly all railway ticket offices in England are planned to close. Rail workers face redundancy and passengers will lose that service. A campaign to oppose the closures is starting.
Rail workers should ensure that the strong workplace organisation that has been developed when they built support for their campaigns of industrial action is not dissipated...
7 June 2023
RMT members working on trains and in stations across the country held another strike on Friday 2 June, the latest in their long-running pay dispute.
1 May 2023
Two key pay disputes in the rail industry are no nearer settlement. Both Aslef and RMT unions have announced strikes In the face of employer and government intransigence.
14 March 2023
RMT members employed by the 14 train operating companies are continuing their long running dispute over pay and conditions.
14 March 2023
RMT is conducting a referendum ballot of its Network Rail members after an improved offer from the employer. They have now voted to accept.
27 February 2023
The government’s attempts to end railway pay disputes are meeting continued resistance.
Mark Harper, prime minister Rishi Sunak’s new Secretary of State for Transport, failed to give any real indication to those working in rail or to passengers that he will in any way adequately address the industry’s current problems.
