Friday 24 Apr 2009

NETWORK RAIL STRENGTHENS NEW STREET GATEWAY TEAM

Region & Route:

Network Rail today announced the appointment of Chris Montgomery as project director of the New Street Gateway project.

Chris will join Network Rail following a 20 year career with Birse, and most recently as managing director of Birse Rail Ltd. He will take responsibility for the day-to-day delivery of one of the country’s highest profile projects.

Robin Gisby, Network Rail’s director for operations and customer services said: “The transformation of New Street is a top priority for Network Rail. As we enter the construction phase for the project, it is vital we have the right team in place for the job.

"Chris has a huge amount of experience delivering major projects on the railway and will be a great addition to our team.”

Chris Montgomery said: “This is one of the biggest jobs in the business and I’m excited to be joining Network Rail to oversee the re-construction of New Street station. Together we will give Birmingham the station it deserves.”

Notes to editors

Mr Montgomery starts his new position on Monday 27 April 2009 The New Street Gateway Steering Group is made up of representatives from: Birmingham City Council, Network Rail, Centro and Advantage West Midlands. For further information please visit our website: http://www.newstreetnewstart.co.uk New Street in numbers: • 35m - passengers who use New Street every year. They are delivered to the heart of the City, with direct access to the Bullring and other businesses • 120,000 - people who pass through the station every day • 60,000 - the amount of passengers per day New Street was designed to cater for when it was rebuilt in 1967 • 20 - the amount of times individual platforms at New Street have had to be closed in the last 12 months due to overcrowding • £398m – the cost to the public purse of building New Street Gateway • £2.3bn – the economic benefits of New Street station redevelopment • £350 m - The amount Network Rail is investing in renewing the signalling systems through New Street and the West Midlands over the next ten years

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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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