13 May 2009
Britain is now better connected and rail passengers in the Glasgow are benefitting from quicker journeys and more frequent services as Rail Minister Andrew Adonis officially opened the upgraded £8.9bn West Coast Mainline.
The line, which runs from London to Glasgow serving destinations including Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, has been completely overhauled over the past five years. The upgrade means that Glasgow and is now just over four and a half hours from London by train - down from over five hours in 2004.
The route is the UK's main rail artery and one of the most intensively used lines in Europe, accommodating many long distance passenger trains, local and regional passenger services and handling 40 per cent of the nation's rail freight.
Jim Murphy, Secretary of State for Scotland, said:
"This upgrade provides rail passengers in Scotland with quicker and more frequent rail services, something that is highly valued by Scotland's business community.
"Travelling between London and Glasgow can now take around four hours - an hour less than it did five years ago - and there are almost twice as many services as there were."
UK Rail Minister Andrew Adonis said:
"Getting to this point has not been easy. That we are here today is testament both to the hard work of Network Rail and the Government's continuing commitment to this vital project.
"It is easy to lose sight of how this work has changed the transport map of Britain and brought real improvements for rail passengers. Five years ago, Manchester was nearly three hours from London and was served by barely one train an hour. Today trains reach Manchester in two hours and run every twenty minutes throughout the day.
"This project helps to better connect Britain. Businesses rely on it both to move their people and to move their freight, giving them the connections they need to help our economy through these difficult times."
Passenger numbers on the line have doubled since 2004 while improved journey times have caused a massive shift from air to rail on the busy Manchester to London route with rail now accounting for two-thirds of journeys, up from one third in 2004.
Weekend travellers will also be a major beneficiary of the upgrade's completion with far fewer engineering closures and an almost doubling of weekend trains. Future closures will be confined to the late Saturday evening/early Sunday morning period or holiday periods when passenger volumes are lower.
Work will now continue to help improve resilience and capacity on the line. Four extra Pendolino trains have been ordered to help ensure that the new higher frequency services are more resilient to disruption, while 31 existing Pendolinos are to be lengthened from nine to eleven carriages to provide extra capacity on the route.