£530M RAIL INVESTMENT PROPOSED FOR NORTH ENGLAND CITIES

Tuesday 16 Feb 2010

£530M RAIL INVESTMENT PROPOSED FOR NORTH ENGLAND CITIES

Region & Route:: National

A £530m investment package to transform rail travel in the north of England through better stations and quicker, more frequent services was unveiled by Network Rail today.

The Northern Hub study identifies what needs to be done to respond to the significant growth seen in the region and to help drive economic prosperity. The plans include:

A 40% increase in trains per day across the region - 700 extra services
Capacity for a further 3.5m passengers per year
Quicker more frequent services for Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield

Iain Coucher, chief executive of Network Rail, said: “Rail is already a massive success story in the north with many thousands of people travelling with us every day and more than 90% of services arriving on time.

“Through better connections, faster services and improved stations we want to trigger wider growth in the north which in turn will support local jobs and businesses. Our ambitious vision includes miles of track, new platforms and electrification to keep driving up passenger demand while keeping freight on the rails – and lorries off of our already congested roads.”

The Northern Hub proposes significant investment in rail over the next 10 years to build on work which is already underway. By removing historic bottlenecks – such as at Manchester - it would allow faster linespeeds, reducing journey times. New track would give greater timetable flexibility – allowing fast trains to overtake and run at speed while still providing space on the network for vital local stopping services and freight.

Notes to editors

Key benefits for passengers include:

· Faster services between Liverpool, Chester, Manchester and Manchester Airport and Sheffield, Leeds, Hull, and the North East

· New inter-regional/trans Pennine services, allowing six trains every hour to pass between Leeds and Manchester with journey times as quick as 43 minutes

· Major restoration and improvements to Manchester Victoria. The station would become a major interchange for the north with vastly improved facilities for passengers

· Increasing capacity for freight by doubling the number of paths from the west coast main line to Trafford Park, and making it possible for larger containers to move across the network

The Northern Hub study will be developed over the next two years. Members of the public can view the study and comment via the website www.networkrail.co.uk/north.

Rail in the North

Passenger numbers are rising year on year thanks to existing improvements in the reliability, speed and comfort of railways in Britain. More people are choosing to travel by rail than at anytime since 1946. Network Rail wants and expects this growth to continue over the next 20 to 30 years as more passengers see the convenience, comfort and environmental benefits of travel by rail.

Freight on Britain’s railways has also increased by 60% in the last 10 years, whilst motorways like the M62 become increasingly congested. Investment to meet this increasing demand is core to Network Rail’s plans and plays a key role in improving the sustainability of Britain’s freight transport system.

Framework for the study

The study has been carried out in two phases:

o Phase one, led by the Northern Way, identified the economic case for enhancement to rail around Manchester and across the north and the improvements to rail services that would drive this economic growth. This was known as the Manchester Hub study.

o Today’s report is phase two. Led by Network Rail it identifies value for money interventions to address the gaps between the capability of the network in 2014 and the capability required to deliver the conditional outputs.

Network Rail will continue to work with the rail industry and stakeholders to develop the plan, and working with our partners we want to win funding for these proposals to be implemented from 2014.

CGI film

If you are experiencing difficulties viewing the CGI film or would like to view a higher resolution version, please use the link below:

http://www.pretzel-post.com/encodes/networkrail/the_north/NR_THE_NORTH_1024X576.wmv.zip

Contact information

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03457 11 41 41

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About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

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