London
fromTime Out London
2 hours agoEast London is getting a brand new train station
Beam Park station has finally received approval after years of delays, facilitating housing and business growth in east London.
The new checks, part of the EU's new Entry/Exit System (EES), collect digital personal records of third country nationals travelling to the Schengen area and replace the manual stamping of passports.
If the trial is successful, the plan will save 20m a year in lost revenue, while preventing confused passengers from being prosecuted for fare evasion, the Department for Transport says. A separate scheme will also make it easier for passengers who buy their tickets from third-party retailers such as Trainline to claim compensation for late or cancelled services under the Delay Repay scheme.
BUS2BUS 2026 is set to bring together transport, technology and industry stakeholders in Berlin on 15-16 April, with a program centred on artificial intelligence, automation and sustainable mobility. The event, held at the Berlin Exhibition Grounds, will feature more than 100 sessions across four stages and involve over 120 speakers from politics, business, research and operations.
While dozens of other countries have delivered fast, modern train networks, we are stuck with a skeletal system built largely on slow, 19th-century alignments. Even developing nations are passing us by. There is growing recognition at the federal level that things need to change, but substantial and comprehensive reform would require an act of Congress.
It's tempting to frame autonomous driving as a single leap. In public transport, adoption tends to be incremental - because the system is built for reliability, and new capabilities have to fit into daily operations without disrupting service. That is why a practical strategy is evolution, not revolution: introduce autonomy in a defined domain, learn safely in real operations, and expand capability step-by-step.
Let's start with the biggest issue on the horizon: the proposed merger of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern. Yes, the ultimate decision is about a year away. But sides are lining up for and against, and right now, the Surface Transportation Board, which is colloquially known as STB -- the railroads' economic regulator -- is considering the details of how the rules governing that decision will be applied.
Travellers heading to Stansted Airport will finally be able to use contactless payments for train journeys from next month, after long-delayed approval was given to extend London's contactless system. The lack of contactless payments on the railway to Stansted Airport has often caught travellers out, as they were unaware they needed to buy a conventional ticket, and were often hit with fines when arriving at the airport. Warning signs were added at Liverpool Street ticket barriers to try to reduce the problem while waiting for contactless payments to be enabled on the service.
The western German state North Rhine-Westphalia is proposing a new package of measures and is calling on the federal government to strengthen safety on trains ahead of a Deutsche Bahn security summit in Berlin. The state, Germany's most populous, wants to expand the use of two-person teams among train conductors. It is also urging the national government to provide legal clarity for the wearing of body cameras on public transport, which is currently voluntary.
Passengers travelling between London and Paris are currently told to check in between 45 minutes and 75 minutes in advance of their departure times, and usually end up waiting in the crowded waiting areas at London St Pancras or Gare du Nord stations.
Three of London's mainline terminus stations have announced more dates for the Railway 200 themed heritage tours that they were running last year. The tours will run once a month from January to March next year at London Bridge, Victoria, and Waterloo stations and will be led by Network Rail and historian-author Rachel Kolksy. They will last around two hours and involve walking around each station and the surrounding areas. The tours will cost £25 per person and dates are below. London Bridge station Tickets