Thursday 15 Jan 2009
NETWORK RAIL WELCOMES RAIL EXPANSION NEWS
- Region & Route:
- National
Network Rail today welcomed the Government’s announcement of potential further rail expansion and the key role that the company will play in developing proposals.
Iain Coucher, chief executive said: "Under Network Rail’s stewardship, Britain’s railways have more passengers than at any time since 1947, trains are running at record levels of punctuality and safety is at an all time high.
"It is clear that this success creates challenges as more and more people want to travel by train. Notwithstanding our plans to invest almost £8bn over the next five years adding capacity to the network, more is needed. It is therefore timely that the government and Network Rail jointly examine the need for new high speed lines."
Notes to editors
Network Rail started a substantial piece of work last year, the new lines study, into the need for new railway lines. This piece of work is ongoing and will feed into the work of the new company, HS2. Last year also saw Network Rail start a significant piece of work on potential further electrification of key rail routes. This initial work will be completed in the spring.Contact information
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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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