Each week, Ben Hopkinson looks back at a serious, crazy, and happy news story from the past week.
Serious News
Network Rail are investing £306million onto Southeastern services to “help keep trains on time” and to improve passenger experience across Kent, East Sussex and parts of south London.
Southeastern are obtaining 13 new units which will replace older trains across the routes between London to Maidstone East and London to Tunbridge Wells, as well as a refresh of their High Speed trains. Improvements to the tracks and stations are also on the cards throughout 2025 too.
The train operator has also pledged to have a net gain in biodiversity across the network by 2035, with some station having gardens.
Crazy News
A man who lost a stash of Bitcoin which is now worth £600million is considering buying a landfill site to search for it.
James Howells from Newport in South Wales had a previous legal case where he was hoping the council would let him search the site be dismissed, but is now discussing the purchase with his business partners instead.
His ex-girlfriend mistakenly threw out the hard drive which contained the crypto currency back in 2013 and has been attempting to reclaim it ever since.
However Howells doesn’t have time on his side as the site is set to be closed within the 2025-26 financial year which will put an end to any hope of finding the digital fortune.
Happy News
A World War 2 plane’s engine has been restored as part of a campaign to honour RAF personnel during reconnaissance missions.
The Rolls-Royce Merlin engine was from an RAF Mosquito that flew in many operations over Europe, which was at the time in control by Germany.
Being attacked five times, it returned to the UK with one working engine on two separate occasions. It crashed into a Welsh mountainside in 1944 during a test flight.
The DH98 de Havilland Mosquito was classed as the most versatile war plane – being used for fighting, bombing, reconnaissance and pathfinder missions.
The engine is on display at the Classic Collective workshop in Bicester, with the hope of a monument in Whitehall to be opened in 2026.
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