UK government announces rail funding boost

More than £9 billion of railway upgrades across England and Wales have been announced by transport secretary Justine Greening. Improvements will meet the needs of intercity passengers, commuters and freight up to the end of this decade while the government continues to work on High Speed 2 to deliver rail capacity for the British economy in the decades to come, Greening explained. This ‘High Level Output Specification’ programme for 2014-2019 includes the already announced electrification of lines between London and Cardiff, Manchester and Liverpool and Preston, and those across the Pennines. Crossrail and improvements to Thameslink are also included in the headline figure. Those schemes are estimated to be worth £5.2 billion according to official estimates. New schemes totalling £4.2bn unveiled today. Thes include upgrades to stations and tracks, creating enough capacity around cities for an additional 140,000 daily rail commutes at peak times. Enhancements - such as the £350m lengthening of platforms at London Waterloo station - will provide capacity for 120,000 more daily commutes in and out of London and 20,100 extra daily commutes across Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and other cities. The creation of a high-capacity ‘electric spine’ running from Yorkshire and the West Midlands to South Coast ports allowing more reliable electric trains to cut journey times and boost capacity for passengers and freight. This comprises: an £800m electrification and upgrade from Sheffield – through Nottingham, Derby and Leicester – to Bedford, completing the full electrification of the Midland Main Line out of London St Pancras; and electrification of the lines from Nuneaton and Bedford to Oxford, Reading, Basingstoke and Southampton. Greening was also quick to point to the “landmark” decision to take electric rail beyond Cardiff to Swansea, completing the full electrification of the Great Western Main Line out of London Paddington at a total cost of more than £600 million, and electrifying the Welsh Valley lines, including Ebbw Vale, Maesteg and the Vale of Glamorgan. These will give two-thirds of the Welsh population access to new fleets of electric trains helping to generate Welsh jobs and growth by slashing journey times and boosting passenger and freight capacity. Completion in full of the ‘Northern Hub’ cluster of rail enhancements with the approval of £322 million of outstanding track and capacity upgrades across Manchester city centre, Manchester Airport and across to Liverpool. These are in addition to £477m of Northern Hub schemes already approved across the North of England such as electrification of the North Trans Pennine route between York and Manchester. A new £500m rail link between the Great Western Main Line and Heathrow allowing direct services to the airport for passengers from the West Country, the Thames Valley and Wales. Greening said: “Investment on this scale, in every region of the country, shows how this coalition government is focused on delivering an affordable, reliable and faster railway network that drives jobs and growth. “These plans to increase capacity and shorten journey times on intercity, commuter and freight services are, alongside our plans for high speed rail, absolutely key to securing our country’s prosperity in the decades ahead.”