Network Rail’s North West & Central region hits important devolution milestone: Platforms 8 and 9 at Liverpool Lime Street station

Monday 16 Sep 2019

Network Rail’s North West & Central region hits important devolution milestone

Region & Route:
North West & Central

Network Rail’s North West & Central (NW&C) region today confirmed its three route directors in a move to bring railway decision-making closer to passengers.

The three route directors are:

  • Phil James - North West route, covering Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire and Cumbria
  • Dave Penney – Central route, covering the West Midlands and Chilterns. Dave is currently MD of Chiltern Railways. He is set to join Network Rail early in 2020. Until then David Golding will be acting Central route director.
  • James Dean – West Coast Mainline South route, covering the main line south of Crewe to London Euston

This is a key milestone in Network Rail’s devolution journey. Splitting existing railway geography into more manageable route areas, which begin operating today, will enable greater local focus and attention to detail as the company re-focuses to put passengers first. 

Phil said: “This change enables us to align more closely with the customers and communities we serve, bringing greater commercial and operational focus in the North West.”

James said: “My vision is for us to be a high-performing business - one that puts passengers and communities at the forefront of all of our daily decisions and endeavours.”

David Golding said: “Our job is to provide a consistently reliable service, day in, day out, for the hundreds of thousands of passengers who rely on us across the West Midlands and Chiltern areas.”

Dave Penney said: “I look forward to joining Network Rail in the new year and bringing the same customer focus I currently apply at Chiltern to the new Central route.”

Tim Shoveller, managing director for NW&C, added: “Under this new structure we and our train company partners are ‘one team’ focused on one goal: reliably delivering the timetable, which is our key promise to the passengers and freight customers we serve.”

More details on the new routes in the North West & Central region can be found at www.networkrail.co.uk/north-west-and-central

For more information on Network Rail’s new regional structure, visit www.networkrail.co.uk/our-regions

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - North West & Central Region
0330 854 0100
NWCmediarelations@networkrail.co.uk

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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