Railways: North of England

(asked on 28th April 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to asking Network Rail to convene a meeting with an independent chairman with wide operating experience to identify ways of improving performance in railway movements in the North of England, particularly in relation to the bottleneck between Manchester Piccadilly and Oxford Road stations, without major infrastructure investment.


Answered by
Baroness Vere of Norbiton Portrait
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
This question was answered on 13th May 2020

The Department recognises the importance of improving the performance of rail services around Manchester and last year Richard George, a railway industry leader with wide operating experience, looked at this subject. Since January, his work has been taken forward to be developed in detail by a Task Force co-ordinated by Network Rail and involving train operators, Transport for the North and other stakeholders. This Task Force is working up options for improving performance through timetable changes without infrastructure investment, as well as considering the appropriate infrastructure investment in the longer term.

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