Media centre

Notes to editors

• Interviews
  Richard Schofield, route managing director Anglia, will be available for broadcast interviews on Monday, March 31.

• Network Rail and its industry partners will deliver a programme of investment to tackle the severe problem of congestion on the busiest parts of the network, providing capacity for 170,000 extra commuter seats at peak times including capability to run hundreds more trains a day between the key cities of the north of England and a 20% increase in central London’s commuter rail capacity through completion of the Crossrail and Thameslink projects

• Of the £38bn to be spent on Britain’s railways over the next five years, £12bn will be invested in capital expenditure projects to relieve overcrowding by building new tracks, uncorking bottlenecks, increasing capacity and upgrading outdated stations:

• The Northern Hub programme will deliver a step-change in connectivity across the north of England, providing faster journeys and the capacity to run hundreds more trains a day between key northern cities

• The Thameslink programme will be completed, with 24 trains per hour each way through the centre of London, taking much needed pressure off the Tube network and relieving commuters of the aggravation of changing trains during the busiest part of the day. Crossrail trains will also be running, increasing capacity for travel through the capital by a further 10%

• More than 850 miles of railway will be electrified, including the Great Western Main Line from Maidenhead to Swansea, the Midland Main Line from Sheffield to Bedford and across the north and north west of England, bringing greener, more frequent and more reliable journeys for millions of people

• A new, electrified railway linking the Great Western, West Coast and Midland main lines will connect Oxford with Bedford and Milton Keynes as part of the East West Rail project

• More than 30 miles of new railway and seven new stations will reconnect the border towns of Scotland with Edinburgh for the first time in 50 years, reversing a Beeching closure of the 1960s and providing a faster, greener alternative to travelling by road

• Stations including Birmingham New Street, Manchester Victoria, Glasgow Queen Street and London Bridge will be transformed, as King's Cross has been, restoring former Victorian glory alongside modern facilities and retail opportunities, bringing investment and jobs into our cities and further income for the railway to invest

• In addition to this capital expenditure, £13bn will be invested in replacing and renewing older parts of the network. More than 7,000km of track and nearly 6,000 sets of points will be renewed or refurbished and 5,000km of fencing and almost 300,000m² of platforms at stations will be replaced or renewed. A further £13bn will be spent on day-to-day maintenance and the costs of operating and running one of the busiest, most intensely used networks in Europe

• Safety improvements at level crossings will continue, with the company pledging to close a further 500 crossings by 2019, investing more than £100m as part of its ongoing programme of work to improve safety and reduce risk to passengers and the wider public

• The next five years will also see Network Rail committing itself to furthering its environmental sustainability and resilience in the face of extreme weather and changing climate. By September, a series of ten route-based climate change strategies will be published, setting out specific measures to be taken to mitigate the effects of severe weather and improve the railway’s long-term sustainability

• Network Rail is committed to making even more trains run on time. By 2019 it has agreed to deliver punctuality levels of 92.5% across England, Wales and Scotland while running more trains and carrying more people than ever before. The company will also provide even better value for money for the British people, delivering a 30% reduction in the day-to-day cost of the railway per passenger kilometre

Anglia route

The route covers two direct commuting routes into the City of London, the densely populated areas to the north, east and west of London, the largest container port in the country at Felixstowe, the major cities of Cambridge and Norwich, but also the rural countryside and market towns of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

The Great Eastern route, West Anglia, North London Line and Thameside routes from Shoeburyness to London are intense commuter routes into and around London but also support a significant leisure market outside the peak and at weekends. The cross country between Ipswich, Norwich and Peterborough provide key links to the North and Midlands. The rural routes in Norfolk and Suffolk provide key links between the major towns and cities and the coast at Felixstowe, Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth and Cromer.

The Great Eastern main line runs from Liverpool Street to Norwich via Chelmsford and Ipswich. The West Anglia line runs from Liverpool Street, through the towns of Cheshunt, Broxbourne, Harlow, Bishop’s Stopford and Audley End before reaching Cambridge, with two branches serving Hertford and Stansted Airport.