Railfuture Policy Director Ian Brown explains how the Midlands – North West Rail Link proposed by the Birmingham and Manchester mayors will catalyse economic growth. Shugborough Tunnel, the key bottleneck on the West Coast Main Line exposed by the cancellation of HS2 Phase 2. Image by Network Rail.

In this briefing, Railfuture Policy Director Ian Brown explains the implications for rail campaigners of the bills identified in the King's Speech and subsequent statements to Parliament. "Heidi Alexander cycling in pop-up bike lane before becoming Transport Secretary. Image from @Heidi_Labour on Twitter."

Railfuture sets out its views on why removing the London Travelcard product, and, in all likelihood, the related National Rail Travelcard add-on product is a very bad idea, and recommends action you can take.

Pete Myers, formerly Stakeholder Manager for Northern Rail and now a director of Railfuture, forecasts a potentially stormy year for our railway in 2023. Passengers moving fast at Leeds station.

The ticket office has been part of the Railway since the start. But now 7 in 8 people buy their ticket in other ways – online, from ticket vending machines – or use Pay as You Go (PAYG). Those 1 in 8 passengers though still need to be looked after properly - Railfuture strongly believes that in-person ticket selling continues to be essential. That doesn't have to be from behind a ticket office window though. Ticket Office staff should be redeployed to other areas of the station and take on a wider role assisting passengers - as well as continuing to sell tickets. Effort is also needed to improve and extend online selling, TVM functionality and coverage and to Pay as You Go. We believe this needs to happen before there are wholescale closures of ticket offices. Image by author.