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Railwatch issue 188 (July 2026)

Further reading, updates and clarifications

Click on the image below to view Railwatch issue 188 in PDF format (2.4MB).

This page shows updates to Railwatch issue 188 (which was uploaded on 14.06.2026) and relevant links to obtain more information about certain articles.

This issue was published in early June 2026.

P.2 'President's Column' - Christian Wolmar's book Fast Track — This was publshed by Penguin Books (under its imprint Michael Joseph) on 23 July 2026, with an ISBN of 9780241775516

P.3 'How to give Heathrow a rail boost' - Heathrow Southern Railway Ltd website

P.3 'How to give Heathrow a rail boost' - Heathrow Southern Railway slides from 2018 — Graham Cross, then CEO (now non-executive director), of HSR Ltd was a presenter at Railfuture's autumn conference in Reading in 2018

P.3 'How to give Heathrow a rail boost' — The article says that Heathrow is the largest single employment site in the UK. In fact, there are more than 70,000 direct jobs on the airport site

P.4 'Rail and bus adds up to multimode magic' — This article is about bus maps — Greater Anglia has recently provided real-time bus information on its screens at the entrances/exits of Cambridge and Ipswich station concourses. The latter includes a map of the bus stop locations

P.11 'Government view: Roadmap is a step forward' — The Lord Hendy article was not attributed. He said this on 5 November 2025. The quote is from his official ministerial foreword for the government policy document titled "Our Roadmap to an Accessible Railway", which was published online by the Department for Transport (DfT) on the GOV.UK official platform.

P.12 'Rail at heart of a new world rising in the east' — The article says that Cambridge South has been in gestation for 64 years. As later stated, 1962 was the year when the first phase of the new Addenbrooke's Hospital on Hills Road was officially opened, following planning and construction that began in the 1950s. A station was proposed at the location of Cambridge South to serve the hospital and Railfuture had been campaigning for it since the 1980s as part of a Cambridge cross-rail service incorporating the St Ives line

P.12 'Rail at heart of a new world rising in the east' - Cambridge South: If you build it, they will come! — It has been announced that 110,000 people used Cambridge South station (the number of entrances and exits) in the first 28 days of its operation. The estimated 1.8 million usage per year would equate to 5,000 a day or 108,000 in that period, so this is very encouraging

P.19 'Devon and Cornwall' - Okehampton Interchange — The opening ceremony was on Friday 31 July and the first trains on Saturday 1 August

P.21 'To DOO or not to DOO on East West Rail?' — Chiltern is advertising for Customer Service Inspectors at its Bletchley depot, the base for East West Rail services. They would perform "guard-like" duties such as "provide a high level of customer care on trains", "take part in revenue protection activities on trains", "perform on-train announcing", and "take action to rectify or report faults". This would be a DCO+1 option - train doors operated solely by drivers (known as DODC, for driver opens and driver closes) not guards. Chiltern is due to be nationalised on 20 September, potentially making a December 2026 start for the Oxford-Milton Keynes service a possibility.

You can click on the above 5 links to read more. Links last changed on 01/08/2026.

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06.06.2026

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