In this edition, we have our regular features from Christian Wolmar; a writer and broadcaster specialising in transport. He has covered the railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s and writes regularly for national newspapers and magazines. In this quarter, he takes a closer look at the biggest construction project in Europe; Crossrail, which is ploughing its way underneath the Capital, on pages 4-6. Christian also discusses with Eurostar their plans for expansion across Europe and their very sophisticated, newly refurbished trains, on pages 20-21. He goes on to investigate how the new train for Britain’s intercity rail network, produced by Hitachi, will impact on Britain’s manufacturing industry and what difference the trains will make to passengers, on pages 22-23. Finally, on pages 24-25, Christian gets to grips with the alliance between Network Rail and South West Trains on services out of Waterloo and discusses how this could have a revolutionary impact on the whole railway, bringing down costs and creating a new partnership between operators and Network Rail.

We also have our regular articles covering Law, Finance, Recruitment and Security to keep you abreast of issues within the industry. Flick to pages 36-37 to read this edition’s Q&A’s, which are answered by Director Chairman of Eurostar, Richard Brown, who spoke to RailCONNECT about where he sees UK rail in ten years' time.

In addition to our regular features, Richard Price, CEO at the ORR gives an in-depth break down of the plan for Britain’s railways for 2014-2019, on pages 26-27. RailCONNECT also got in touch with Murlac Ltd., a company who leapt into the industry at a time when the railways were flooded and in urgent need of recovery. We get an exclusive insight into the inflatable dam technology which is now being developed to become a first port of call for Network Rail during a flood risk, on pages 30-31. We also speak to Paul Arnold, Director at Railmet, to get a timely update on the organisation which was specifically created to provide proactive severe weather incident management assistance to train operating companies and infrastructure managers during times of severe weather disruption, on pages 48-49.

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