British government announces £8bn railways investment
To meet with the high demand and contain overcrowding on British railways, British Transport Secretary Philipp Hammond announced an £8bn investment in railways infrastructure and rolling stock. The funds will pay for more carriages on high traffic lines as well as the electrification of lines. The much-needed service improvement comes along with a high fare increase.
The plan includes mainly buying more than 2,000 carriages, increasing capacity by 17% and creating space for 185 000 passengers. Although 659 carriages will be delivered by 2014, passengers will have wait to get the full benefit, as the acquisition program stretches to may 2019.
The majority of carriages are to be used to improve capacity around London. Some 600 carriages are intended for Crossrail – the new line being built east-west across London, and 1200 for the Tameslink – the north-south link across the city.
The electrification of the London Swansea line is delayed, in favor of the electrification of lines between Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Blackpool. To this day, Britain has only 38% of it's 20,000-mile network electrified. Which puts it behind most european countries,only eight, including Albania and Latvia having fewer electrified lines. Electrified lines only have advantages, allowing greater acceleration, having 20% more seats than diesel counterparts, are more reliable and have an operational cost half of diesel equivalents.
Announced in the midst of strong budgetary cuts, the multibillion program is to be underwritten by government-backed debt, state grants, and years of increase in ticket price. Fare will rise by 6.2% next year, with a 12.8% increase on some routes. The increase, added with the delay to see new carriages on tracks prompted annoyance among some observers. "Commuters will see their fares rise by 3% above inflation next year and they now face waits of up to a decade for the new trains that will ease overcrowding and speed up journeys," said the shadow transport secretary, Maria Eagle.
In response, Mr. Hammond acknowledged that the fare increase was a bad new for commuters, but argued that there is no choice to finance the plan. British railways are funded by a £5bn annual contribution from the taxpayer, a £6bn contribution from the farepayer and £24bn of borrowings raised by Network Rail, who owns and operates Britain’s rail infrastructure.
LINKS:
BBC News: the investment on a map
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