Mark Carne
Chief Executive, Network Rail
Our railways are vital to the UK’s economic growth; creating jobs, building homes and connecting communities. Continuing high levels of investment in our railway are essential if we are to continue to unlock the potential of our towns and cities, helping them to grow and to flourish by providing connectivity and the safe and reliable infrastructure they need.
With over 15,000 projects on our books, Network Rail is by far and away Britain’s biggest builder. And delivering projects on time and on budget, during small, overnight slots, and at weekends and Bank Holidays forms the cornerstone of our role as custodians of the railway. This is increasingly challenging as demand for more services reduces access even more and we need to constantly innovate with the supply chain to find smarter ways of delivering.
Working together as one railway, the Government and industry are in the final two years of delivering a massive five-year Railway Upgrade Plan, investing £130m every week. Extending platforms, building new stations and platforms, building flyovers and new pieces of railway; introducing new technology and new signalling; replacing worn out track and junctions; increasing line-speeds and providing new passenger facilities at stations such as multi-storey car parks; all aimed at improving, expanding and growing our railway to meet the demands of an rapidly growing passenger base and to prepare the way for 6,400 extra services a day by 2020.
Some of these upgrades are the mega-projects, such as Thameslink, the Great North Rail Project, the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme, Crossrail, Great Western electrification, and the Waterloo and South West upgrade. These are no longer distant pipe-dreams - passengers will see a transformation in services over the next 18 months as much needed capacity, via new, more frequent and longer trains, is introduced.
But it has not all been plain sailing. I›m the first to say that the high-profile problems of
the electrification projects at the beginning of the Control Period (2014/15) tarnished an otherwise strong record of delivery. Much has been written about how these problems arose, but the main thing is that now we will not enter into projects before understanding the scope and costs; confidence in delivery is essential for investors.
The good news is that the changes we have made are already making a difference. A recent independent global study of 400 project and engineering companies told us that we are now among the very best performing in the transport sector. That must help set us up to plan and secure investment for the next Railway Upgrade Plan for 2019 and beyond.
But now, we should take the time to celebrate our successes, those of our industry partners, and the thousands of engineers, designers, project managers, and scores of other roles that make the Railway Upgrade Plan possible. The projects they are delivering are among the largest, most complex and challenging in the world: British engineering at its best.