The North of England’s sub-national transport body has backed Network Rail’s plans for a multi-billion pound upgrade to the TransPennine rail link, which it says will benefit a future Northern Powerhouse Rail programme.
Transport Network reported on Monday that the national rail infrastructure operator is planning to spend £3.1bn upgrading the TransPennine line in Control Period 6 (CP6: 2019 to 2024), with the aim of cutting journey times between Manchester and York and developing electrification options.
A spokesperson for Transport for the North (TfN) told Transport Network: ‘Rail North and Transport for the North both believe it is vital that the North gets the outputs which were originally committed for the TransPennine route upgrade and the Northern Hub, including much improved journey times, longer trains with more seats and an overall improvement to the performance on the whole route.
‘The wider Northern Powerhouse Rail programme, which focuses on transformational rail links between six of the north’s key cities and its major airport, is a longer term and broader transport investment programme over and above the TransPennine route upgrade – but which will benefit from this investment, which will be fully integrated with and complementary to the plan for NPR.'
The Government has given TfN £60m to develop proposals for Northern Powerhouse rail, which aims for a one hundred-fold increase in the number of people in the North who can access four or more of its largest economic centres within an hour.
A Network Rail spokesperson told Transport Network that the figure of £3.1bn for CP6 enhancements was for its financial planning purposes and not a funded value.
However, Rob McIntosh, managing director for Network Rail's London, North Eastern and East Midlands route, told members of the All Party Parliamentary Rail Group last week that he was ‘working very closely with the Department [for Transport] on how they might approach the TransPennine conundrum’.
Network Rail announced on Monday that it has awarded contracts to two alliances to work collaboratively on the early development of potential infrastructure options for the Transpennine Route Upgrade in CP6.
One alliance will cover the East of Leeds, while an alliance between Network Rail, Amey, BAM Nuttall and Arup will design options for the route West of Leeds, covering upgrades to civils, track, railway systems and electrification.
Paul McKeown, director of route sponsorship for the London North Eastern and East Midlands route, said: ‘We are focussed on developing the potential infrastructure enhancements that will lead to faster, more frequent and more reliable train services across the north and will submit these to the Department for Transport at the end of the year.’
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