Rail News
September 12 , 2021
Daventry boy, 15, leads campaign for £20m new railway station
BBC News | 11/Sept/2021
A 15-year-old behind a projected £20m scheme to build a railway station has said his age was "on my side".
Harry Burr started the Daventry Parkway Project, in Northamptonshire, to provide a station in the area following closures in the 1950s and 60s.
The two-platform station at Weedon Bec, near Daventry, would use the existing London Northwestern Railway line.
Chris Heaton-Harris, Daventry MP, said the work Harry had carried out and the people he had spoken to was "spot-on".
Daventry and Weedon Bec stations closed to passengers in 1958.
The teenager started the project in July 2020, aged 14, and is now chief executive of Sustainable Transport Midlands.
He hoped work on the station, expected to cost about £20m, could be started by the end of the decade.
It was needed as the nearest existing railway station, at Long Buckby, was six miles (10km) away from Weedon Bec by road and 5.4 miles from Daventry, he said.
He believed funding for the project would come from the private sector, government grants, enterprise partnerships and it was being supported by West Northamptonshire Council.
Phil Larratt, Conservative cabinet member for transport, said West Northamptonshire Council supported new stations and a new facility at Weedon could "serve all the villages and communities between Daventry, Northampton and Towcester".
"We will be doing everything we can in the background working with partners to lobby central government and Network Rail to make this and other opportunities a reality and supporting Mr Burr's vision," he said.
The youngster said he was being "taken seriously" by the rail industry, had had meetings with Network Rail and the Mr Heaton-Harris, who was also a minster of state at the Department of Transport, who he described as being "as passionate about rail as I am".
The Conservative MP said: "Harry took me through what he had done so far on his idea for a Daventry Parkway Station and we discussed the various stages every project needs to get past for it to secure funding and be delivered.
"Harry's list of things he needs to achieve and people and organisations he needs to get onside was spot-on, and I look forward to seeing this project develop."
- The £5bn project that will join university towns
- 'This train line could tear our community apart'
- Can £25m transform Northampton town centre?
The project's next step was a feasibility study, expected to cost £10,000.
"I've been told, 'you should be playing with a Hornby train set'," said Harry Burr.
"I think people are quite intrigued that I am running a major project at 15, but age is on my side.
"If you were 30 years old, I don't think they would take so much notice."
Julie Burr, his mother, said: "It shocked me that he's managed to do this and the contacts he's managed to make are incredible.
"They're listening to my 15-year-old and he talks so much sense."
New and image Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-58432976
Recommended for you
Hydrogen-Powered Trains Have Arrived
The Wall Street journal May 26, 2021 6:38 am ET (US) Railways are using the gas to clean up diesel routes. As predictable customers, they can help bring down the costs of green hydrogen for other sectors. For all the buzz about hydrogen trucks and planes, railways provide the most immediate test case for the rollout of a clean-energy technology that has electrified policy makers and markets alike. Investors got very excited about the potential of hydrogen as a sustainable fuel last year, but have taken a breather in recent months—as they have with other speculative technology themes. The fact remains that, for many industries, so-called green hydrogen produced using renewable power needs about a decade of scaling up and rising carbon prices to make it competitive. Yet that isn’t the case for rail transport. Hydrogen-powered trains built by France’s Alstom have already carried passengers over 110,000 miles on trial operations in Europe. The total lifetime cost of ownership is already comparable for trains running on diesel, hydrogen fuel cells or electrified lines, according to a report by consulting firm Roland Berger. Hydrogen is best seen as a substitute for dirty diesel, still used on about half of Europe’s rails and most in the U.S. The gas is particularly useful on routes that aren’t busy enough to give priority to overhead electrification, but are too long for batteries alone. Alstom’s hydrogen trains are new, but existing diesel ones can also be retrofitted. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/hydrogen-powered-trains-have-arrived-11622025494
July 09 at 07:38 AM
Read MoreCancellation of High-Speed Rail (HSR) project
The Straights Times JAN 8, 2021, 3:42 PM (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) High-speed rail project cancellation just tip of the iceberg in Malaysia's recent rail controversies KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's cancellation of the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) project is the latest in a series of controversies involving train projects that has cast a light on the governance of these billion-dollar deals. Since the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government came to power 10 months ago, at least two other tracks which traverse Kuala Lumpur's greater metropolitan area are facing government intervention over the selection of contractors. The RM4.4 billion (S$1.44 billion) Klang Valley Double Tracking Phase 2 (KVDT2) deal was terminated abruptly in August after Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong said the award should be retendered, leading to a civil suit by the appointed firm, Dhaya Maju LTAT. Meanwhile, Umno MP Tajuddin Abdul Rahman's chairmanship of Prasarana has also invited scrutiny, especially after the national public transport firm's decision to withhold up to RM1 billion owed to a consortium tasked with building the Light Rail Transit 3 (LRT3). Datuk Seri Tajuddin, the election director of Malaysia's largest party, cited Prasarana's liquidity problems and the lack of bumiputera sub-contractors selected by turnkey developer MRCB-George Kent (MRCBGK) for withholding the sum in the RM17 billion project. These government interventions have led to calls from across the political divide as well as civil society for more transparency, with some implying cronyism was at play. Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/high-speed-rail-project-cancellation-just-tip-of-the-iceberg-in-malaysias-recent-rail
July 09 at 07:36 AM
Read MoreOxygen Expresses
The Economic Times Jun 06, 2021, 07:10 PM IST (India) Oxygen Expresses delivered 26,281 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen across 15 states The railway's Oxygen Express trains have delivered 26,281 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen across 15 states, the national transporter said on Sunday. As many as 1,534 tankers have delivered oxygen to 39 cities in the country, it said. While 376 trains have completed their journey and brought relief to various states, six loaded Oxygen Express are currently on the run with more than 483 tonnes of LMO in 26 tankers. Southern states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka received more than 3,000 tonnes of oxygen each from the Oxygen Express. It offloaded more than 2,800 tonnes of the gas in Andhra Pradesh. Oxygen Express trains started their deliveries 43 days back on April 24 in Maharashtra with a load of 126 tonnes. Relief by these trains reached out to 15 states namely Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Assam. Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/railways/oxygen-expresses-delivered-26281-tonnes-of-liquid-medical-oxygen-across-15-states/articleshow/83282997.cms?from=mdr
July 23 at 09:32 AM
Read More