UK - Rail disruption misery to continue up to 2009

[John Ashworth]

Rail disruption misery to continue up to 2009

· Line closures and delays for west coast mainline
· Network Rail warned of another hefty fine

* Dan Milmo, transport correspondent
* The Guardian,
* Saturday May 3 2008

Millions of passengers on one of Britain's busiest rail routes face widespread disruption until the new year after the rail regulator sanctioned a huge engineering programme on the London-to-Glasgow line.

There will be line closures and diversions on the west coast mainline every weekend until 2009 as Network Rail scrambles to complete vital upgrade work. Despite protests from Virgin Trains, the line's biggest user, the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) said yesterday that the owner of the UK rail network should be allowed to go ahead with the revised plan.

The rail passenger watchdog said the extra work was "extremely unfortunate" but necessary as the troubled £8.6bn upgrade of one of Britain's busiest rail routes draws to a close.

Anthony Smith, chief executive of Passenger Focus, said: "Network Rail must get information out to passengers and make sure that the work is done on time."

The ORR said the revised plan was a better option than delaying the project until May next year. "It is vital that Network Rail now delivers this plan. We will closely monitor Network Rail's performance between now and December," said Michael Lee, an ORR director. There is scepticism within the rail industry that Network Rail can complete it on time, after the infrastructure company argued against giving itself some leeway by extending the deadline to May next year.

"They should have planned to do it by May. That would have been easier, because Network Rail is effectively telling people not to travel on the west coast line at weekends until next year," said one industry source.

Virgin Trains has been critical of the revised plan, which was drawn up after the ORR warned Network Rail was heading for a repeat of the new year fiasco if it did not change its west coast plans. Earlier this year Virgin Trains slammed the new plan as "unworkable", but yesterday accepted it would go ahead.

Network Rail said 20 weekends would involve bus replacement services as work is carried out near Milton Keynes and Rugby, which will disrupt all services to and from London. A further 15 weekends will see extended journey times as trains are diverted on to other sections of the rail network, meaning every weekend up to the new year will be affected by engineering work.

Iain Coucher, Network Rail chief executive, said the disruption would result in a "big prize" for rail passengers. "We recognise that this massive engineering undertaking will continue to cause disruption but the benefits that will be delivered make it more than worthwhile," he said. Network Rail faces a further fine if it does not complete the work by December after being warned by the ORR that missing the deadline will be a breach of its licence.

This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday May 03 2008 on p9 of the UK news section. It was last updated at 00:07 on May 03 2008.