Nigel Harris (born March 1957) is an English journalist and media commentator. He was managing editor of RAIL, a UK rail industry magazine. Now Co-Presenter of the Green Signals podcast [1] with Richard Bowker CBE. [2] He has been in the railway publishing industry since 1981 where he started as assistant editor of the publication Steam World . [3] He is often invited to speak on British television about accidents and other rail related matters. [4] [5] He is regularly called before the Transport Select Committee of the UK Parliament to give evidence and opinion. [6] [7] He has also taught on the Winchester Journalism course. [8]
Harris was born in March 1957 [9] in Burnley, Lancashire and educated at Burnley Grammar School. He then attended and graduated from the University of Wales, Lampeter, in 1978 with Honours in History. He started his career in journalism at The Westmorland Gazette in 1979 as a trainee reporter. In 1981 he started as assistant editor of the publication Steam World . He has also edited Steam Railway and Trains Illustrated. [10] He co-founded and managed a book publishing company, Silver Link, from 1984 to 1990 which has since been acquired. [11] [12]
Harris was appointed editor of Rail in 1995. [13] The magazine is currently produced every two weeks by Bauer Consumer Media. Since 1995 he has written extensively about the privatisation of British Rail and the impact of the privatisation of British Rail. [14] He has written opinion and analysis for The Times , and provided specialist rail industry comment for, among others, the BBC's Today programme. He has also specialist books on railways and shipping to his credit. [15] [16] [17] One major project has been editing and researching for A New Illustrated History of Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate, by Ian Prosser and David Keay. [18]
Harris has provided expert evidence to the Transport Select Committee of the UK Parliament. [6] He was the principal witness at a televised select committee meeting on 26 May 2021 discussing the Williams-Shapps White Paper on Great British Railways formation. [7] He has also given evidence to the Rail Accident Investigation Branch. He is a regular conference speaker, panelist and chair.
Rail moved into the business events sector, launching the National Rail Awards, with categories including station of the year. [19] Harris has planned and presented NRA presentation ceremonies at Grosvenor House in London's Park Lane. Later events have included the National Rail Conference, the RAIL 100 Breakfast Clubs, [20] and the National Rail Recovery conference (February 2021). [21] Speakers at the latter included Huw Merriman (chair of the Transport Select Committee), Jim McMahon (Shadow Transport Secretary) and Lord Peter Hendy CBE (chairman of Network Rail). [22] [23] The 2021 Awards were again held at Grosvenor House on 16 September 2021. [24]
Harris is also a television programme-maker having produced, scripted and presented programming for this rail industry market. [25] His description of British Rail Class 46 locomotive number 46009 being destructively smashed into a nuclear flask to demonstrate safety was shown on national television. [26] [27] [28]
He is often invited to speak on British radio and television about rail-related matters. [4] [5] His opinion was sought by the BBC after the Ufton Nervet rail crash in 2004. [29] In January 2012, he was interviewed by the BBC for a mini-documentary news item "Inside the new-look London King's Cross railway station". [30] The BBC also sought his opinion after the 2015 Wootton Bassett rail incident, [31] a near-miss that later led to spot hire railway company West Coast Railways losing its operating permit. [32] After the August 2020 Stonehaven derailment, he appeared on Sky News [33] and Channel 4 News [34] and others. [35] [36] Other media appearances include on ITV News at Ten [37] and LBC. [38] He also provided media comments after the Salisbury rail crash reporting. [39] In 2020 he appeared in the top 10 of railway influencers. [40]
He often writes about HS2, and was described by the Yorkshire Post as a "top rail expert". [2] When the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands was published in November 2021, he called it an act of political spinelessness, saying it created a new east-west divide in the country. [41] [42] He further accused the government of selling the public total lies. [43] He had previously warned that the whole purpose of HS2 is destroyed if the eastern leg was scrapped. [2] He called it hugely damaging for the public, echoing the Newcastle Member of Parliament Catherine McKinnell, [44] and raised concern about the blight on people's lives with the cancellation. [45] When interviewed by The Independent he said the Leeds station upgrade being called part of the IRP by the government was not spin but dishonesty. [46]
Harris also works in a volunteer role for Great Central Railway Development Ltd, a company aiming to reinstate part of the old Great Central Railway, though he resigned as an officer in October 2019. [9]
Sheffield station is a combined railway station and tram stop in Sheffield, England; it is the busiest station in South Yorkshire, and the third busiest in Yorkshire & the Humber. Adjacent is Sheffield station/Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield Supertram stop.
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The Leeds Supertram was a proposed light rail/tram system in Leeds and West Yorkshire in England. It would have been a three-line, 17-mile (27 km) system with 50 stations. It received provisional government approval in 2001, and was specifically for corridors ill-served by the existing heavy rail network. Supertram would have been 75% funded from the public sector, with final contracts for construction and a 27-year operating concession due to have been awarded in 2003. By 2004, disquiet about rising costs had caused the scheme to be scaled back, and it was finally cancelled in 2005 by the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling.
Stonehaven railway station serves the town of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom. It is sited 224 miles 74 chains from Carlisle via Perth, on the Dundee to Aberdeen line, and is situated between Laurencekirk and Portlethen. There is a crossover at the southern end of the station, which can be used to facilitate trains turning back if the line towards Aberdeen is blocked.
Regional Eurostar was a planned Eurostar train service from Paris and Brussels to locations in the United Kingdom to the north and west of London.
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Transport in Leeds consists of extensive road, bus and rail networks in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Public transport in the Leeds area is coordinated and developed by West Yorkshire Metro. The city has good rail and road links to the rest of the country. Leeds railway station is one of the busiest in Britain, and Leeds is connected to the national road network via the A1(M) motorway, M1 motorway and M62 motorway. The city is served by Leeds Bradford Airport.
High Speed 2 (HS2) is a high-speed railway line which is under construction in England. The same name is planned to be used for services which are to run on the line and beyond. The line is to run between Handsacre, in southern Staffordshire, and London, with a spur to Birmingham. A network of new train services is planned, which are to use the new line and existing conventional track to reach their destinations in the Midlands, North West England, and Scotland. HS2 is to be Britain's second purpose-built high-speed line after High Speed 1, which connects London to the Channel Tunnel. A review of the line's route is currently being undertaken with a report expected in Summer 2024, which concluded in March 2024 that the leg between Birmingham and Manchester would be funded by private investment, by the Mayors of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. The majority of the project is planned to be completed between 2029 and 2033.
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East Midlands Hub was a planned new railway station on the Leeds Branch of High Speed 2. It was intended to be located on the existing railway sidings in Toton, situated between Nottingham and Derby. The station would have been located adjacent to the M1 motorway in Nottinghamshire, on the border with Derbyshire.
Manchester Airport High Speed Station was a planned High Speed 2 station at Manchester Airport, on the southern boundary of Manchester, England, next to Junction 5 of the M56 motorway on the northern side of the airport 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north-west of Manchester Airport railway station.
Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), sometimes referred to unofficially as High Speed 3, is a proposed major rail programme designed to substantially enhance the economic potential of the North of England. The phrase was adopted in 2014 for a project featuring new and significantly upgraded railway lines in the region. The aim is to transform rail services between the major towns and cities, requiring the region's single biggest transport investment since the Industrial Revolution. The original scheme would have seen a new high-speed rail line from Liverpool to Warrington continuing to join the HS2 tunnel which it would share into Manchester Piccadilly station. From there, the line would have continued to Leeds with a stop at Bradford. The line was intended to improve journey times and frequency between major Northern cities as well as creating more capacity for local service on lines that express services would have been moved out from.
The history of High Speed 2 is the background to the planned construction of High Speed 2 (HS2), a new high-speed railway in Great Britain that would connect London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and other cities in the UK.
Siemens Goole is a train factory located in Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Siemens Mobility assessed several sites in the United Kingdom before settling on Goole with an intent to build the plant if it were successful in gaining orders for new rolling stock. After a June 2018 announcement that Siemens had won the bid to build 94 London Underground New Tube for London trains for the Piccadilly line of the London Underground, Siemens confirmed it would go ahead with building the factory, though this was then subject to further delays as other rolling stock companies objected to Siemens being given the contract.
The Stonehaven derailment was a fatal railway accident that occurred at 09:38 BST on 12 August 2020, when a passenger train returning to Aberdeen hit a landslip, near Carmont, west of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, following severe rain. Of the nine people aboard, three were killed, and six were injured.
The Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands or more simply, the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP), is a United Kingdom government proposal published on 18 November 2021. It aims to deliver "increased capacity, faster journeys or more frequent services on eight out of the top ten busiest rail corridors across the North and Midlands", by developing rail services along with the required infrastructure in these regions of England. It was published by the Department for Transport (DfT) and features forewords by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, but its publication was delayed a number of times, partly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It contains the significant proviso that "In line with the Government's existing approach to rail enhancements, commitments will be made only to progress individual schemes up to the next stage of development, subject to a review of their readiness." A Technical Annexe was published in January 2022. A correction slip was issued March 2022.
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The West Yorkshire mass transit system, is a proposed transport system connecting the larger conurbations of West Yorkshire, England, with a central hub at Leeds. The city of Leeds is known to be the largest city in Western Europe without a light rail or metro-style system.