Department denies plans to backtrack on rolling stock order

The Department for Transport has been forced to deny that it is planning to backtrack on the 1,300 new trains promised to the rail industry by 2014 in the DfT’s High Level Output Statement.

Following a parliamentary debate in which junior transport minister Paul Clark acknowledged that some of the allocation would be made up of rolling stock from the new Thameslink order, shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers accused the government of orchestrating a “con” which would...