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Looking forward to closer cooperation

Colin Wheeler There is clear enthusiasm for recruiting more heavy goods vehicle drivers to meet current and future industrial demand. Yet electrifying more of our...

Great British Railways are coming

Colin Wheeler On 5 November, the proposal to establish Great British Railways (GBR) was formally laid before Parliament. As part of this major reorganisation, the...

Young Rail Professionals: innovation all around

Richard Harmer, chief operations officer at Young Rail Professionals (YRP), reflects on rail innovation and how emerging technologies are reshaping signalling, projects, and everyday...

Private operators under scrutiny

Colin Wheeler A  combination of new safety concerns amongst those operating and maintaining privately-owned railways, and concerns for volunteers working on railways, are at the...

Community health and rail

Columnist Daisy Chapman-Chamberlain explores the link between access to travel and community wellbeing. When we think of ‘health’, we usually picture hospitals, undertaking physical activities,...

Young Rail Professionals: A vision for the future

Bonnie Price, CEO of Young Rail Professionals (YRP), reflects on her time at InnoTrans 2024, the world's largest trade fair for transport technology. InnoTrans is...

Nationalisation: What will it mean?

Colin Wheeler considers the impact of the Labour Government's plans to re-nationalise the railways. In the run up to this year’s General Election, the Labour...

Young Rail Professionals: a long, busy summer

Bonnie Price, CEO of Young Rail Professionals (YRP), keeps us up to date with all of the organisation's summer activities. We have had a busy...

All change, please

There’s been a sense of change in the air ever since Rishi Sunak called a General Election for 4 July. It would be wrong...

Safety awareness & culture need to improve

Colin Wheeler I was pleased to see the recent updating of Network Rail’s Safety Bulletins on their Safety Central website which is accessible to all....

Time to close the gap

RailStaff’s new columnist, Daisy Chapman-Chamberlain, explains why an industry-wide push on EDI is essential. In many ways, the rail industry is extraordinarily honest. When there...

Time for a change?

Colin Wheeler This year there will be a General Election, perhaps in October, and the funding of our railways, trams, metros, and indeed all forms...

Rethinking health, safety, and wellbeing in the rail industry

Radical thinking is required if the rail industry is to truly manage its health and safety commitment, says Darren Broadhead, managing director at Broadhead...

Another rollercoaster year

Somehow, we’ve come to the end of another year, and it’s been one crammed full of successes, surprises, and struggles for the industry. Looking at...

HS2: an opportunity lost

Since late September, industry news has been dominated by the fate of HS2. After weeks of speculation, it did not come as a great...

Young Rail Professionals: A packed itinerary

YRP Chair Bonnie Price gives us the latest news and developments, and a reminder of its upcoming events. It has been a busy and lovely...

An industry for everyone

Welcome to another edition of RailStaff, which reaches you with summer in full swing and temperatures on the rise. This month we turn our attention...

Our railways and trams need more focused organisation

Colin Wheeler Political turmoil, the UK economy, and Covid have all affected the way we live and work. Hopefully we are at last moving forward...