Media centre

Monday 20 Sep 2004

125 GOES LIVE

Region & Route:

| Southern

Millions of hours of hard work are about to pay off for passengers, as the renewed West Coast Main Line prepares to go live at 125 (mph) providing a safer, faster and more reliable railway. Monday 27 September will see Network Rail reach the first major milestone of the £7.6 billion modernisation of the London to Glasgow route, with the introduction of a 125mph railway for tilting trains between London and Manchester. This achievement will bring immediate benefits for thousands of passengers who use Britain’s busiest rail route every day, with faster journey times and increased train frequency, including London to Manchester in a little over two hours and London to Glasgow in 4hrs 41mins – half an hour faster than today. Since May 2003, a 9,000 strong West Coast workforce has worked a total of 24 million hours (almost 2,740 years) to rebuild the railway between London, Birmingham, Crewe and Manchester. In addition, this army of engineers has installed over 460 new sets of points, around 600 miles of overhead wiring, and enough ballast to fill six supertankers (over 1.1 million tonnes). - more - 125 live - 2 Chairman Ian McAllister, said: “This is a significant achievement and marks a massive step forward in the continuing modernisation of the West Coast Main Line.  Passengers along the route have been incredibly patient as we’ve practically ripped up the route and rebuilt it.  But the benefits are considerable with faster, more frequent services, - and more to come as our task to rebuild Britain’s railway continues. “I would like to thank the thousands of railway people who have made this achievement possible. We will now continue our work to prepare the route for the next stages of the upgrade project.” Milestones achieved on the project since its inception have included: ·        August 2000 - The remodelling of Proof House Junction – a major bottleneck near Birmingham ·        August 2001 – The remodelling and resignalling of the Euston area ·        May 2002 – North Staffordshire resignalling project ·        July 2002 – Introduction into passenger service of the class 390 Pendolino ·        October 2003 – Colwich (near Stafford) to Cheadle Hulme renewals (including 71 miles of track) ·        December 2003 – Rugby to Atherstone (near Nuneaton), first stretch available for 125mph running in tilt ·        May 2004 - Crewe to Cheadle Hulme renewal of 40 miles of track ·        June 2004 – New flyover and platforms at Nuneaton ·        September 2004 – Stockport renewals and resignalling ·        June/September 2004 – Watford to Bletchley and Rugby resignalling The project has also seen the introduction of new platforms at Birmingham New Street and Wolverhampton to help increase capacity, and platform extensions at stations south of Northampton to allow for the operation of 12-carriage trains, supported by track improvements to the commuter lines. - more - 125 live - 3 Maintenance work has also started on the West Coast to the new standards required for a high speed tilting railway, with the introduction of two sophisticated track measurement trains, which will support Network Rail’s team in maintaining the new infrastructure. But the renewal of the West Coast route doesn’t end with the 27 September timetable. Further linespeed improvements follow as the project focus moves north, with track improvements through to Preston and Liverpool by June 2005 and on to Glasgow by December, delivering even faster journey times. Tom McCarthy, Programme Director for Network Rail’s West Coast upgrade said: “We  have much work left to do over the coming years to further improve capacity.  The work, though not on the scale seen so far, is vital and includes track and signalling works at Nuneaton, the remodelling of the layout through Rugby, the four tracking of the Trent Valley and the upgrade of the route’s power supply.”