LIVERPOOL City Region transport authority Merseytravel has agreed to contribute £765,000 towards the development of plans for a new line to Skelmersdale, the second-largest town in northwest England without a rail connection.

TRANSPENNINE Express (TPE) and CAF have released the first image of the new Civity UK EMUs under construction in Spain for the British franchise operator.

TRAIN operating companies, infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR), and representatives from passenger groups and regional economies along Britain’s East Coast Main Line (ECML) have formed a Route Supervisory Group in an effort to better hold the industry to account and improve cooperation between the different bodies to drive improvements for passengers.

BRITAIN’s Department for Transport has pledged £59.8m towards Midland Metro’s 2km Edgbaston extension, completing the £149m in funding required for the project.

THE first sleeping cars being supplied by CAF to Serco Caledonian Sleepers, Britain, under a £150m contract have arrived at the Velim test centre in the Czech Republic in preparation for testing.

LONDON Underground (LU) has awarded a £112.1m contract to Bombardier to refit its fleet of 85 eight-car Central line trains with new ac traction motors and control equipment.

A 70:30 joint venture of FirstGroup and MTR took over Britain’s South Western franchise on August 20 from Stagecoach, which has operated the franchise as South West Trains (SWT) since the start of rail privatisation in 1996.

BRITAIN’s infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR) has awarded a £29m contract to Atkins to resignal 42km of lines linking Norwich, Yarmouth and Lowestoft in eastern England.

HITACHI Rail Europe began testing the first class 802 Intercity Express Trains for Great Western Railway (GWR) on the British main line network at the beginning of August.

TRENITALIA confirmed on August 10 that it is pulling out of the competition to operate Britain’s South Eastern franchise as it focusses resources on developing its British rail portfolio in other areas.