Media centre

Friday 17 Sep 2004

NETWORK RAIL – WEST COAST ROUTE MODERNISATION

Region & Route:

| Southern

Built in 1837, the West Coast Main Line runs from London Euston to Glasgow and Edinburgh, connecting the major cities along the route. During the last 160 years, it has developed into the UK’s busiest mixed traffic railway (responsible for 43% of Britain’s UK rail freight market) and is recognised as a leading European rail artery. Responsible for over 2,000 train movements each day, more than 75 million rail journeys are also made each year on the route. But despite its standing as part of the national rail network, the line has not seen any significant investment since the 1960’s, with the incredible demand on the infrastructure taking its toll. Hence the advent of the West Coast Route Modernisation (WCRM) programme – Europe’s largest wholesale rail renewal scheme and one of the most challenging projects of its kind in the world. But a project of such scope and scale – some 1,660 track miles, 2,800 signals including 13 major junctions and 10,000 bridge spans, is not without its obstacles. Set against a backdrop of ensuring the continuation of an operational railway, engineers were severely constrained by the restrictive possession regime in place, with works largely limited to weekends and evenings. Not only was this inefficient (approximately 50% of time taken setting up and then closing down the site), but it also impeded the timely delivery of the scheme, with the introduction of a 125mph railway unavailable until Winter 2006. Following several months of detailed discussions with the train and freight operators and Railtrack (now Network Rail), the Strategic Rail Authority released a new strategy for the delivery of the West Coast project, compiled with support from the industry and in particular Network Rail and replacing traditional working arrangements in favour of targeted long term engineering access along specific sections of route. This has helped to provide greater efficiency, a safer working environment and improved access to carry out works, enabling the introduction of a 125mph railway for the new class 390 Pendolino tilting trains between London and Manchester in September 2004, with further incremental improvements to follow, through to December 2005. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Q1) Why were project costs allowed to spiral from £2.2billion through to £13 billion? Isn’t this an indictment of the industry’s ability to manage major projects? A1) The current cost of the modernisation of the West Coast is £7.6 billion. The growth from £2.2billion to £7.6billion reflects guesswork compared to reality as the amount of work required to bring the assets back into condition following 40 years of non-investment became clear. The project is probably the largest and most complex schemes on an operational railway ever undertaken in terms of planning and logistics. It is only through the strong project management team and some 9,000 workers of the last two and a half years that a new 125mph railway has been achieved. Q2) You are heralding the introduction of the new 125mph railway but it’s actually late and should have been introduced in May 2002. What went wrong? A2) Today’s achievement is a massive step forward in the modernisation of this key rail artery. Yes there have been delays, as Railtrack really never got to grips with the project in the early years making 2002 undeliverable. Only through close working with our colleagues in the SRA, Virgin and the other train and freight operators, was the way forward devised and the project brought back on-track. Q3) Why do you need a tilting railway and is this expenditure really justified? A3) The West Coast is now over 160 years old and was never designed for either the speed of today’s trains or the capacity that would be imposed upon it. Tilt trains allow greater speeds around tight curvatures, which are characteristic throughout the route. Without these tilting trains we would not be able to achieve the speed increases required to deliver quicker journey times and a more frequent service. Q4) You talk about faster and more frequent services but the main beneficiary of this work appears to be the long distance traveller. What about the local commuter and the impact on those services, such as Milton Keynes that seems to lose out in the new timetable? A4) The enhancement we are delivering benefits both the long distance passengers and commuters. At the southern end of the West Coast, we are introducing a new fleet of Desiro trains next year, which will help deliver improved capacity and performance. We will also be increasing linespeed on the West Coast commuter routes in the south from 90 to100mph by the end of 2005. Q5) Will we really see an improvement in safety and reliability once this work has finished? A5) We are already starting to see the benefits of the investment to date in improved safety and reliability. The introduction of the new timetable takes advantage of the increased linespeeds and capacity improvements to make for a more reliable railway going forward. There is still more to do to reach milestones in June ‘05, December ’05 and beyond to 2008/09.  Though the scope of this work is not extensive as that so far seen it will still affect weekends services along the route for some time to come. We will ensure through continued cross industry co-operation that people can continue to travel throughout, using a combination of diversionary services and replacement coaches/buses, already successfully demonstrated during previous works. There should however be a noticeable improvement in weekday services going forward. Q6) Will we ever see the introduction of 140mph on the West Coast, as this was originally envisaged for 2005? A6) The current programme does not contemplate increasing to 140mph. Such an increase is dependant upon the development of a new signalling system – such a system, ERTMS, is currently under development in this country and across Europe, although still in its infancy. Q7) Why adopt long-term closures that have had a major impact on the travelling public? A7) Weekend and mid week night working was very inefficient and using solely this approach would have meant a further 2 years of disruption before next weeks milestone was reached. Long term closures strategy, although clichéd really is short-term pain for long-term gain. This strategy also allows us to divert long distance services around the works, whilst local trains are replaced by high quality coach and bus services – a system that has proved successful during the West Coast major works (and which started with the Ledburn works at the end of 2002, when we replaced trains with buses between Milton Keynes and Hemel Hempstead over 18 consecutive weekends). Q8) How much more disruption can we expect on the West Coast before the work is finished and how can we believe that costs will now remain constant at £7.6 billion? A8) The benefits start today and increase with time in the months ahead as our phased introduction of more trains and quicker journey times delivers real improvements for users of the route. With the new 125mph timetable delivered for routes between London and Manchester, our focus moving forward will be increasing linespeeds north of Crewe to Preston, Liverpool and Glasgow, with works scheduled for completion by December 2005. This will mean a series of weekend possessions with measures in place to ensure disruption to the travelling public is minimised. The West Coast programme itself ends by 2008/09 following the completion of the four tracking of the Trent Valley and the Rugby Station remodelling. In addition we will be enhancing the reliability of our power supply systems over the same period through the introduction of auto transformer technology. Q9) Why is it necessary to four track the Trent Valley with all of the disruption that this will bring? A9) Both the four tracking of the Trent Valley and the remodelling of Rugby will help with the segregation of traffic flows such as fast and regional passenger services and freight trains. This enables a new timetable structure to be implemented giving further improvements in the services between London, the North West and Scotland. They also enable maintenance and renewals to be undertaken without disruption to the weekend and overnight passenger and freight operations. Q10) Whatever happened to the Train Control System (TCS) and in cab signalling? What is the strategy for signalling the route in the future? A10) The TCS programme has been absorbed by the ERTMS programme which is currently under development. We have learnt from the past and this very busy, key route is not the place to try-out new, unproven technology. In terms of signalling for the route, the strategy has been to replace many of the old signal boxes/systems with the new more reliable axle counter technology and the introduction of signalling control centres along the route (e.g. Stoke and Rugby). Q11) Why has the main focus of the project been predominantly on the southern end of the route? Will Scotland ever see any benefit from this project? A11) From 27 September 2004 and the introduction of the new 125mph timetable on West Coast, passengers will see immediate benefits as they travel between London and Scotland, as a result of the improvement works at the southern end of the route. However, works are well underway along the northern sections of the route and in particular in Scotland, which will see additional journey time improvements by December 2005 and further improvements by 2008/9 once the other capacity projects are complete. Q12) Why are you celebrating the new timetable when you are closing the route between Crewe and Glasgow every weekend for the next year? A12) We are highlighting the first significant milestone of the programme, which benefits passengers throughout the route. Our focus forward is through to Liverpool, Preston and Glasgow, giving further significant journey time improvements in December 2005. This is a major achievement for the industry and we should be rightly proud that we have now provided a 125mph railway on the West Coast Main Line.