Tracks laid £780m of

10 MINUTES TO BE SHAVED OFF LONDON JOURNEYS

Political Editor DETAILS of how £780m earmarked for the upgrade of the East Coast Main Line will be spent have finally been revealed.

After it was initially claimed it was a case of “wait and see,” the Government told of its intentions four days after the cash was announced by Prime Minister Theresa May during a visit to Gateshead.

The Department for Transport (DfT) says there will be more long-distance services on the East Coast Main Line thanks to the investment, while the fastest journey between London and Newcastle will be around 10 minutes faster than today.

And there will be one more train per hour operating between Doncaster and Newcastle, along with two more longdistance services per hour operating between London and Doncaster.

But most of the funding, the DfT says, will be spent on power supply upgrades between Doncaster and Edinburgh to support the running of more trains.

It comes after Network Rail, the body responsible for rail infrastructure, initially told The Chronicle that “at the moment the projects haven’t been decided”, describing it as a case of “wait and see” how the money will be spent. The DfT was also unable to provide any specific details on how these improvements would be achieved or what exactly the money will be spent on.

A spokeswoman told The Chronicle that Network Rail was “establishing contracts” but that no further information was available.

However, in an apparent U-turn yesterday afternoon, several improvements were outlined by the DfT.

Many take place outside the North East but they will affect long-distance services across the entire line, the DfT said.

Improvements include work at King’s Cross station in London, to add capacity to enable more trains to run, as well as upgrades at a key junction near Peterborough and platform-lengthening at Edinburgh to support longer trains.

There will also be a number of improvements along the route to sup-