Britain’s rail companies plan to run more trains, to more places, more often

Britain’s rail companies have unveiled plans to run over 6,400 more passenger trains every week by 2021, running to more places more often, creating new opportunities and supporting jobs.

According to new analysis by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) which represents train operators and Network Rail, a predicted 1,283 more trains a day (6,417 a week) will run from Monday-to-Friday nationwide for the next four years – an increase of 11%.

Future timetable plans show that:

• Passengers travelling on commuter routes into and within London, as well as those on high-speed England-to-Scotland routes, will see an increase in the frequency of trains
• Passengers using the Edinburgh-to-Glasgow and TransPennine routes will see timetable improvements
• Further improvements will cover the Midlands, Wales, Kent, the West Country and the North West as the rail industry finalises the detail of new timetables
• Many of the improvements will be in place by 2019.

The timetable improvements are boosted by an investment of £11.6 billion in over 5,500 new train carriages, as well as other investments in stations, signals and tracks.

“Rail is an ever more vital public service, enabling jobs, housing and economic growth. But there’s a capacity crunch affecting the railway, with journeys having doubled in 20 years and the number of trains increasing too,” said RDG Chief Executive, Paul Plummer. “The £50 billion plus Railway Upgrade Plan will help ease the congestion on Britain’s railway. It will break bottlenecks, untangle tracks and harness technology so that more trains can run to more places more often, creating new opportunities and supporting jobs.”

The Railway Upgrade Plan includes £31.3 billion of renewals and enhancement by Network Rail to the railway infrastructure between 2014 and 2019, including work on the Thameslink Programme; spending to complete the £14.8 billion Crossrail project; and £7.7 billion on HS2 by April 2019.