In one of our recent issues, we looked behind the scenes of Spain’s high-speed railway, the longest in Europe. Now, we go back on the issue to unpick why recent reports found the network to be operating at a loss and trailing behind many of its counterparts in terms of popularity.

We also analyse what exactly happens to an area once urban rail disappears, as is the case for the New York neighbourhood of Williamsburg, where young people are moving out en masse ahead of the L train shutdown.

Next, we turn our attention to train stations: their role is rapidly changing, along with passengers’ needs. We investigate how stations are becoming places of leisure, shopping, business and everything in between.

The role of train guards is also under review. Future Rail hears from both sides of the debate to find out if the benefits provided by train guards outweigh the cost of keeping them on increasingly digitised rail networks.

Lastly, we investigate the grey areas of managing carriage temperatures and take an in-depth look at the Joint Rail Data Action Plan, which aims to bring the power of open data to the railways.

Read on for all this and ­­­­join the conversation on Twitter.

Eva Grey, editor