Media centre

Tuesday 31 Mar 2009

A NEW START FOR PASSENGERS IN THE NORTH EAST

Region & Route:

Tomorrow marks the start of a new era of rail in the north east as Network Rail embarks on a £multibillion programme of expenditure targeted at building a bigger and better railway.

The ambitious five year blueprint of investment includes plans for hundreds of schemes and projects aimed at providing extra capacity or capability for passengers and freight users with more seats, more trains, longer trains and faster trains.

The blueprint, called the CP4 Delivery Plan (CP4 is control period 4, 01 April 2009 to 31 March 2014) and its supporting documents runs to over 800 pages. It details the improvements to be made on the national rail system over the next five years, how train performance will increase to even higher record levels and how safety will also reach new highs.

Richard Lungmuss, route director for London North Eastern (LNE), said:" Britain is poised on the brink of a rail revolution. After decades of underinvestment, Network Rail is ready to unleash the biggest expansion of Britain’s railways since the age of Brunel.

“The next five years will see massive investment in improving the railways for passengers and freight users by adding capacity and relieving overcrowding. We will see a transformed railway through ambitious plans that will deliver more trains, more seats, longer trains and faster trains.

"Services will be even more reliable, delays caused by the infrastructure will be cut by nearly 25% and we will embark upon an investment programme that is bigger and more ambitious than anything seen in a generation.

"Delivering all this will require major change across the industry and we should not underestimate the scale and difficulties of the challenge that lies ahead."

The LNE will see £1.4bn of projects to grow a bigger and better railway.

On top of that renewals for routes in the north east area will total around £122m, for example, approx £28million will be spent renewing and upgrading the signalling systems along the Durham coast between Stranton (Hartlepool) and Ryhope Grange. The work will help Network Rail continue to provide a modern, reliable railway and will provide benefits to cope with potential traffic growth. An additional £578m will be spent purely on keeping the East Coast Mainline up to standard.

Mr Lungmuss continued: "Stations will be transformed and new ones built. Speeds will be increased. Bottlenecks will be unblocked. Thousands of new trains will debut, services will run more frequently at weekends and at bank holidays. And all this while time keeping is ramped up, costs driven down and safety indicators boosted.”

"The last five years has been about putting right the ills of the railway - this has been achieved with train punctuality, passenger satisfaction and railway safety all at record levels and billions cut from the cost of running the railway. The next five years will be focused on doing these basics even better and delivering a bigger, better railway for passengers and freight."

Network Rail is committed to making even more trains run on time. By 2014 it is committed to record punctuality levels of 92.6%. This compares to just over 90% now and 78% at the time of Railtrack’s demise. Locally, Network Rail is committed to helping National Express improve performance on the east coast by almost 5% over five years.

Network Rail's planning horizons extend far beyond the next five years and are looking up to 30 years ahead with detailed reviews already well underway into possible main-line electrification and the building of further high speed lines.

The next five years will also see Network Rail committing itself to furthering its environmental credentials. With carbon emissions an ever growing cause for concern, Network Rail will make the case for rail – the most environmentally friendly form of mass transit.

Mr Lungmuss added: “Rail is the greenest way to travel, I think it's the greatest way to travel and I intend to champion the cause of rail in the north east over the years to come.”