THE Integrated Rail Plan is a “huge opportunity for the railway to deliver transformational change”, said Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines in a briefing to the railway press on February 3. “But we should not underestimate there is a huge amount to do.”
Mr Haines believes that negative comments in the mainstream press about the Government’s recent announcement of a £96 billion investment in Britain’s railways have done a disservice with the Treasury at a time when the economics of the railways are really challenging.
“The hyperbole that has been applied to this has been damaging and done us a disservice,” he said. “It’s a huge level of investment and might not be everything everybody expected. Many of those expectations were never grounded collectively in a business case that could stand up to all the other demands in infrastructure investment. We have to weigh up competing demands.”
However, the investment is still a significant amount of money that can make a real difference. “I always give the example of when I joined Network Rail 3½ years ago, when the TransPennine Route Upgrade [TRU] was a £3.5bn project,” continued Mr Haines. “It’s now nearer a £10bn project – not because of cost escalation, but scope change with full electrification and ECTS projects, and key parts of IRP factored into it.”