Wise Words for You

Left to right, Toby Savage, Leader of South Gloucestershire Council, Mark Hopwood, Managing Director of GWR, David Eccles, of EDF Energy, and Tim Bowles, incumbent Mayor of the West of England A new modern speed record has been set on a train from Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington to celebrate the release of Great Western Railway’s new timetable, which comes into effect on 15 December. GWR’s bullet-style Intercity Express Train, which has been in service since October 2017 and now operates on all of GWR’s long-distance routes, took just 72 minutes to reach London Paddington. The special non-stop service marked the new December timetable being made public for the first time. The biggest timetable change on the network since 1976 will offer faster journey times and more frequent services to key locations. The service left Bristol Temple Meads at 1849 and arrived into London Paddington at 2001 to establish a post-speed restriction record between the two stations. GWR...

Friday 5th July 2019 marked a major milestone for rail customers across the North and Scotland as TPE officially welcomed the first of of their brand new Nova 1 trains following formal acceptance from the Office of Rail and Road. Built by Hitachi Rail and financed by Angel Trains, the bullet-style Nova 1 trains will mean more carriages and extra seats for customers and the on-board experience will be completely transformed. Thefe will be 19 five carriage Nova 1 trains, each containing 342 seats, an extra 161 compared to its current trains. The futuristic fleet will carry customers on the route between: Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Morpeth and Edinburgh and will start to be phased into service, as planned, before the end of the year. Rigorous testing of both the Nova 3 and Nova 2 fleets is currently ongoing and three Nova 3 trains have now been accepted, however as a result of further faults that have emerged, the first of the Nova 3 trains will now enter   s...