West Coast Main Line

On 7th December 2008 Network Rail completed its £9billion project to improve the West Coast Main Line – the key route linking London with cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. This major engineering project has brought massive benefits to passengers, with significantly more and faster trains. 

A key part of delivering such a massive improvement has been working hard with industry partners such as Virgin trains, London Midland and EWS. We will continue to work closely with all our industry partners to maintain and deliver this high performance railway. 

The scale of the job

• Changes to all 13 major junctions on the route, including a significant bottleneck at Rugby, enabling trains to travel at up to 125mph
• Laying more than 36 kilometres of new track through the Trent Valley
• 174 new or altered bridges
• 53 new or extended platforms at places like Milton Keynes and Manchester Airport
• Replacing over 800 points (the bits of track that move trains from one line to another)
• Line speed improvements across the whole line, including between Preston, Carlisle and Motherwell and between London Euston and Wembley
• Putting up over 11,000 structures
• Over three million yards of rail, ballast and sleepers have been laid

What improvements have we delivered?

Capacity has increased along the route by 70%, this means hundreds of extra daily train services and a quarter of a million more seats for passengers across the network. Below is a summary or what was achieved:  

Rugby Rugby is a key junction on the West Coast Main Line. Before work began, trains could travel through Rugby at 75 mph. Network Rail carried out work to simplify the tracks and signalling, build an additional two platforms and improve station facilities, which has increased the speed to 125 mph and now allows faster, more frequent trains to travel through the station and reduces delays by keeping fast and slower trains apart.

Nuneaton Work carried out at this major junction simplified the junction layout and modernised the signalling system. Fast and more frequent trains are now segregated from the slower services reducing delays and allowing for trains to travel at 125mph.

Milton Keynes The scheme was a key part of upgrading the West Coast Main Line and supports the government plans to increase the number of new homes in the area. Network Rail carried out work to improve the signalling and track layout, as well as providing new platforms. These improvement will prepare the station and the line for future growth in the number of passengers.

Stoke Work at Stoke will mean that more passengers will benefit from more trains and more reliable services as well as higher speed services.

Trent Valley Four Tracking Project (TV4) This £350m project delivered an additional two new train tracks through the Midlands, between Tamworth and Armitage. This work unlocked a major bottleneck on the route, enabling 125mph trains to travel on this part of the West Coast Main Line.

A before and after comparison of the works carried out doubling the railway through the Trent Valley

More trains

The new December timetable on West Coast is bringing benefits for a wide range of train and freight operators. The table below shows how there are now more than 1150 extra services on London Midland and Virgin trains alone.

There will be 10 million extra seats on Virgin services alone during 2009. With Virgin trains covering 65,000 miles a day (up from 42,000) that means each Pendolino will cover a million miles by 2012 (in three years).

Faster journeys

The new timetable on West Coast will deliver up to a 30% cut in journey times. Highlights of the new services include:

• Three Virgin trains per hour to Birmingham
• Three Virgin trains per hour to Manchester  
• 50% increase in Sunday services, with the number of weekend services closely resembling today's weekday service 
• New London Midland services to Liverpool, London and towns up and down the west coast route 
• Big cut in journey times including:

• Places like Preston, North Wales, and Coventry will also benefit.