At today's annual general meeting, Network Rail's chief executive, David Higgins, predicted that by 2014 the UK and Scottish governments will have received a rebate of around £310m as a result of the company's success at delivering substantial cost savings with high levels of safety and performance.
David Higgins said: "We are acutely aware of the need for us and our industry partners to reduce the costs of our railway both for the taxpayer and the fare payer. We are making good progress, whilst grappling with the continued growth in passenger and freight demand and balancing the trade-offs between cost, performance and capacity."
During the AGM an update was given to the company's members (the equivalent of shareholders whose job is to hold the board to account) of the company's progress highlighting, that by the end of the current control period (2014) the company expected to have given a rebate of around £250m to the Department for Transport and around £60m to Transport Scotland.
The company reported a 24% drop in the number of infrastructure failures since the start of the control period (April 2009), high levels of safety (historically and compared to other countries in Europe) and high levels of punctuality with 91.6% of services meeting target (slightly behind ORR targets) in 2011/12.
The company also reported moving some 1.46bn passengers in the year on 7.3m trains - 0.5bn more passengers on one million more trains than 10 years ago. Both records not seen since the 1920s when the network was almost twice the size it is today.
Mr Higgins continued: "Network Rail is doing well. The company and its 34,000 people continue to work hard to deliver against some tough targets and deliver a good, reliable railway for the British people.
"We can never be complacent and there are improvements and gains yet to be made. This week the government has given the railway a big vote of confidence announcing over £9bn of future infrastructure projects. We are determined to deliver further improvements and to make our railways a source of pride again for all who use or work on it."
The AGM also saw its members vote to radically reform the company's governance structure to make it more effective and accountable. There was a 100% vote in favour of the new governance model that will see the membership reduced from around 100 to around 40.
The AGM also saw its members vote to radically reform the company's governance structure to make it more effective and accountable. There was a 100% vote in favour of the new governance model that will see the membership reduced from around 100 to around 40.
£100m INVESTMENT SIGNALS NEW START FOR NOTTINGHAM
The railway infrastructure in Nottingham stands on the brink of big changes, from new and refurbished station buildings, to a complete redesign of the tracks and signals.
Network Rail is embarking on a £100m plan to completely renew the railway around the city, with the relaying of six miles of track, and the installation of more than 140 new signals. Also, this week the government announced plans to electrify the line to Nottingham.
Three signal boxes and two footpath crossings will be closed, bringing greater efficiency and safety to the line, and two level crossings to the east will be renewed.
Network Rail’s resignalling work will bring a faster and more reliable railway infrastructure – as well as a new platform created at the station. This will complement the Nottingham Hub Project which is set to start in September and will deliver better station facilities at Nottingham.
Network Rail route managing director Martin Frobisher said: “This investment in Nottingham will bring a huge improvement for passengers. Nottingham is such an important city in the east midlands and the station improvements will create the gateway which the city deserves. The improvements to the railway infrastructure will improve the flexibility, speed and reliability of the services to and from the city."
As a result of the scale and complexity of the works, there will be some major changes to East Midlands Trains services between 20 July 2013 and 26 August 2013. The full timetable for the period is currently being finalised, however the following changes are expected to take place:
- no London services will be able to serve Nottingham station and will instead be starting and terminating at East Midlands Parkway station with connecting replacement bus services.
- in addition, services between Nottingham and Skegness will be affected, with services starting and terminating at Grantham during part of the work
- other services to/from Nottingham will be affected during the work and details will be confirmed at eastmidlandstrains.co.uk in advance of work starting.
Mr Frobisher added: “We realise this will cause disruption to passengers and have made every effort to minimise the length of time our resignalling will take. As the summer is the quietest period for the railway, this is the best time to do the work. We have worked very closely with the cricket ground to make sure that the railway improvement work does not conflict with the Ashes test match. A full timetabled train service will operate throughout the test match.”
When the signals are commissioned on August 24 and 25 2013, it will mark the end of Trent power signal box after 44 years of service. The area will come under the control the latest generation of signal control centres at Derby, delivering greater reliability and efficiency.
David Horne, managing director of East Midlands Trains, said: “We are pleased that Network Rail will be making this investment in the railway at Nottingham. We will be working closely with them over the next year to prepare for the major work and keep our passengers informed about the changes they can expect to their service in Summer 2013 when this important improvement work will be carried out.”
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