What’s in store in ’24

Sunday 31st December 2023

To round off this series of special blogs for the festive period here’s a timely look forward to what promises to be another action packed transport year ahead in 2024.

Among the much delayed and long awaited projects which absolutely must happen in 2024 are the introduction into service of the four years late Class 701 Arterio trains on South Western Railway and the opening of Cardiff’s new central bus station after a five year famine.

Another bus station to open will be the rebuilt facility in Durham, originally scheduled for Autumn 2023 but never happened, while in Halifax the town is already enjoying half its new bus station back open for business with the other half due to be completed and open in the Spring.

Other new classes of train into service will include Tyne & Wear’s Stadler built Class 555 trains for the Metro (photographed above), TfW’s Tram-Trains coinciding with the reopening of the Treherbert line due in February, but almost certainly running late, Avanti West Coast’s Hitachi Class 805s and the Class 230 battery train will begin on the West Ealing to Greenford line.

We’ll see a more extensive roll out of the new Stadler trains on the Glasgow Subway following a soft launch of the first one last month and more Class 730 trains for West Midlands Trains will hit the tracks. EMR’s new Hitachi Class 810s will begin testing but almost certainly not see passenger service until 2025.

As to train Classes that’ll be no more, I suspect we might see the withdrawal of the remaining HSTs with ScotRail and GWR particularly following another crash last week when the cab of a ScotRail HST suffered extesnive damage after hitting a tree that had fallen on to the line between Dundee and Glasgow. Perhaps the former TPE Class 68 and Mark 5A coaches will find their way to Scotland as replacements?

Passengers using the Marston Vale line between Bedford and Bletchley can look forward to their full rail service being restored as soon as all drivers have been trained on the Class 150 trains now drafted in.

Driver training of the Siemens built ‘New Tube for London’ trains for the Piccadilly line will possibly commence in the summer once the first trains arrive in the UK and are passed fit for operation with all sorts of gauge clearance testing. Entry into passenger service is not scheduled until 2025. Hopefully TfL will receive approval from Government early next year to place a follow on order so the 51 year old Bakerloo line stock can be replaced as well as finance for the much needed signalling upgrade on the Piccadilly line.

Rail infrastructure will be back in the headlines in the Spring when the newly restored £116 million Levenmouth rail link opens together with new stations at Cameron Bridge and Leven. The new tracks leave the main line at Thornton Junction on the main line to Dundee.

Edinburgh and Wolverhampton enjoyed tram extensions in 2023 and in 2024 we’ll see Blackpool’s trams finally reach Blackpool North station while after the bumper eight new stations in 2023, the year ahead sees fewer ribbon cutting ceremonies. In addition to the aforementioned Cameron Bridge and Leven, there’ll be White Rose on the Leeds to Huddersfield line, pencilled in for late Spring, while Ashley Down between Bristol Temple Meads and Filton Abbey Wood seems a certainty for the summer.

Lined up for a December opening is Cambridge South and my pessimistic (but probably realistic) guess is others earmarked for opening in late 2024 are likely to slip into 2025 including the restored Northumberland line (with stations at Northumberland Park, Seaton Delaval, Newham, Blyth Bebside, Bedlington and Ashington) as well as three stations on the Camp Hill line in the West Midlands (Moseley Village, Kings Heath and Pineapple Road). A new station at Butetown (by Cardiff Bay) is also earmarked for a 2024 debut but I’m willing to bet a One-Day Travelcard on that slipping into 2025 too. As you can see, it looks like 2025 will be a bumper new station opening year rather than 2024.

We’ll see the completion of the Mayor’s Superloop network in London with route SL5 (Bromley to Croydon) commencing on 3rd February and routes SL2 (Walthamstow to Royal Docks) and SL3 (Thamesmead to Bromley) due to hit the road in the Spring and certainly before the Mayoral elections in May as will the promised individual names for each of the Overground lines be announced amid much fanfare.

It’s also likely changes to bus routes in Sutton and Croydon will finally be introduced following a public consultation way back in 2020 (no rush) while over in Orpington, route 358 to Crystal Palace will see the ‘tram like’ electric Irizar ieTram buses enter service with passengers soon complaining the capacity is insufficient (it is).

Arriva’s improvements to bus networks in Central Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire will continue (following Leighton Buzzard and High Wycombe this year) with new X numbers (X4-X9) branding for inter-urban routes across the region being introduced next weekend while seven months after opening, Reading Green Park station finally gets a bus route as BSIP funds sees Reading Buses route 9 revamped and extended from Tuesday.

Also next week Blackpool Transport’s bus network is being revised, oops, sorry, it’s being “reimagined” with new route numbers forming groups of similar numbers along common corridors. It has all the hallmarks of causing potential confusion for passengers but I’m sure it’ll all soon settle down well.

The respected Guildford based Safeguard bus company marks its 100th anniversary in March with centenary celebrations to look forward to….

…. and First Bus owned Ensign Bus is marking the 20th anniversary of route X80 between Lakeside and Bluewater with a special livery.

Exits will see Uno leave Northampton at the end of March as Stagecoach takes over that company’s bus routes aimed at the town’s university students (along with an inevitable network rationalisation)….

… while a new competitive service sees McGills take on Lothian between Edinburgh Airport and the city centre from tomorrow.

Ownership changes will see the sale of Arriva by DB to I Squared Capital formally go through and the delisting of Rotala from the AIM market as it moves back into private ownership under three of the existing directors, while in Greater Manchester Tranche 2 of the franchised Bee Network goes live on 24th March with Stagecoach taking over the huge Queens Road garage from Go-Ahead as well as Middleton and Oldham and Diamond and First begin running smaller franchises in Oldham and Rochdale respectively.

More intriguing will be the much anticipated announcement in the Spring of which companies have won contracts in the huge Tranche 3 award (due to start on 5th January 2025), with Stagecoach, the current operator of almost all the routes involved in South Manchester. This announcement will need to land before the purdah period ahead of the Mayoral election in May.

A decision on whether to go down the bus franchising route by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority is also expected in March (with introduction from June 2026) and the much anticipated legislation to enable Wales-wide bus franchising will be laid before the Welsh Senedd.

ASLEF members will continue to flex their industrial action muscle having renewed the strike mandate for a further six months with one day strikes at different TOCs likely to the same pattern as in early December.

The first 20 ADL Enviro100EV buses off the production line will enter service in Scotland after an order from Stagecoach supported by the Scottish Government’s ScotZEB fund but 24 articulated buses planned for the West Midlands ‘Sprint’ corridor, originally due into service in 2024, are in doubt with uncertainty over whether they’ve even been ordered yet. The DfT approved a request from the West Midlands Combined Authority to change the order from hydrogen to electric powered buses. More electric bus deliveries will see Oxford and Coventry enjoy all electric fleets as well as many other bus routes converted to electric power including the much delayed entry into service of new TrawsCymru route T22 between Caernarfon, Porthmadog and Blaenau Ffestiniog with electric buses just announced to be introduced in February.

There’ll be more autonomous bus trials with the CAVForth2 trial between Edinburgh Park and Ferrytoll Park & Ride due to be extended to Dunfermline city centre as well as another scheme involving Stagecoach and Aurrigo due to launch in Sunderland.

Rail fares increase by 4.9% in March with a similar increase likely on TfL notwithstanding the Mayoral election, such are the organisation’s finance challenges, as well as the already announced 3% real price increase in Travelcards, but the £2 bus fare continues throughout the year in the rest of England, and more local authorities will no doubt use Bus Service Improvement Plan funding to introduce, or continue, reduced fares for young people as well as some free fare weekends and more new bus routes.

There’ll inevitably be more DRT schemes coming to an end as enlightened local authorities realise they’re a lost cause although most have committed funding through to 2025. Those at risk include Tees Valley’s ‘Tees-Flex’, East Cheshire’s ‘go-too’ and Suffolk’s second attempt with ‘Katch’.

Conversely new schemes will continue to launch as tech companies keep convincing gullible local authorities DRT is the future. They need to have a chat with the Mayor of Watford who’s just blown £1,533,996 on the town’s useless Click scheme which he personally championed but ended yesterday after three and a half years of wasted money. The Council was paying £17.36 per passenger journey with numbers travelling pitifully low.

Whatever tech firms reckon, DRT certainly isn’t the future, and nor are semaphore signals on the railway with more set to become a thing of the past in mid Cornwall as a resignalling scheme between Truro and Lostwithiel is activated.

Passengers using Victoria Station will be able to enjoy a much improved and expanded gateline on both the Southern and Southeastern sides of the busy terminus as extensive building works come to a conclusion.

And as 2024 draws to a close there’ll be much discussion about future funding for the myriad of bus schemes and improvements that have been introduced with BSIP funding in 2023 and which expires in March 2025 as well as the £2 maximum bus fare currently scheduled to end at the end of the year but almost certain to be extended for another year, albeit with an increase to £2.50.

A big unknown for 2024 is HS2’s London terminus and whether Sunak’s idea of involving property developers will rescue the project’s obvious essential objective of reaching Euston sometime in the 2030s or more likely 2040s. Let’s hope a positive decision is reached in the next twelve months and maybe…

… the wonderful Leslie Green designed original Euston Underground station building. which is still standing amidst the demolished desolate site, could survive by being incorporated into whatever development is designed?

Finally, more as a prediction than a certainty, the General Election will return a Labour Government by a landslide (almost certainly in May) but there’ll be no immediate reform in either the world of bus or train operations, although proposals will be made for local authorities to set up their own bus companies (none will) and make it easier to take back control and franchise bus routes (none will, other than the ones with already declared intentions) while Great British Railways and ticket reform will still be talked about rather than actioned. The dispute with ASLEF might at last be settled by the new Government but the RMT will almost certainly be back in dispute.

So, “a lot to look forward to”, as they say.

Happy New Year.

Roger French

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