Electrified rail axed over cost (but taxpayers still stump up £56bn for HS2)

MINISTERS were last night facing a backlash from MPs after ditching longawaited plans to modernise railways in Wales, the Midlands and the North.

The row comes amid growing concern the Government is concentrating too many resources on HS2 – which some experts have warned will cost double its official £55.7billion budget.

Five years ago, the Government promised to electrify swathes of rail lines, boasting of new trains, more jobs and slashed journey times. But a cost overrun of as much as £1.9billion on the Great Western line has unnerved ministers.

Yesterday – on the last day before MPs break for the summer recess – Transport Secretary Chris Grayling revealed ministers will instead introduce bi-mode trains on the Midland and the Great Western mainlines.

These have diesel engines but are also part electric, meaning they can run on

electric sections of the track. He said the new bi-mode trains would also be faster, have more seats and will have better onboard facilities.

The decision affects lines between Cardiff and Swansea, Kettering, Nottingham and Sheffield, and between Windemere and Oxenholme.

But the U-turn sparked an outcry from politicians whose constituents have been waiting for years for rail electrification.

Stephen Kinnock, Labour MP for Aberavon, described the announcement as a ‘body blow for Wales’.

He said: ‘For years now the Tory government has been promising that it will deliver full mainline rail electrification from Paddington to Swansea. Today we have seen that those promises were not worth the paper they were written on.’

Meg Hillier, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, described the situation as a ‘shambles’ and said residents in these parts of the country have been ‘waiting in vain for years’.

She said: ‘So much time and money has been wasted by not planning properly.’

Her committee recently described the botched electrification of the Great Western line as a ‘stark example of not how to run a project’.

Mr Grayling dismissed reports suggesting HS2 could cost as much as £100billion as ‘wild rumours’, insisting the project is on time and on budget.

Yesterday he said: ‘We are making the biggest investment in the railways since the Victorian era and upgrading services across the country, including in Wales, the Midlands and the North.’

‘So much time and money wasted’