UK - Boss Says Railways Are Best Ever

[John Ashworth]

Boss Says Railways Are Best Ever
Sky News
Updated:16:53, Tuesday April 01, 2008

The boss of Network Rail has told Sky News that Britain's railways are the best they have ever been despite recent delays caused by engineering overruns.

Speaking on Jeff Randall Live, Iain Coucher admitted there were problems but insisted more money than ever before was being invested and that punctuality was running at record levels.

Talking about the New Year's travel chaos when trains were cancelled because of overruns, he said "We get in, we do the work and we get out without passengers even knowing that we've been there.

"However when we do get it wrong, as you have seen at Christmas and New Year, it does go horribly wrong for passengers.

"And our measure is to make sure we don't repeat those sorts of episodes in the future."

He said there was hope for commuters as nearly £9 billion would be spent over the next 5 years to "improve the railways, to make them faster, to put more trains on."

Mr Coucher denied that Britain's railways would be improved if train companies, like Virgin and Midland Mainline, were put back together with Network Rail.

When the railways were privatised the companies that ran the train lines were split from the company that managed the track and infrastructure.