Rail Professional
Figures released today (Monday) by the Rail Delivery Group reveal a boost in the number of new train carriages coming on track by 2021.
Last October Britain’s railway, a partnership of the public and private sector, published its plan to change and improve rail services, committing to delivering 5,700 new carriages by 2021. Today’s figures reveal a further 1,300 carriages will be arriving on Britain’s railway by the early 2020s, bringing the total number to just over 7,000.
New carriages are part of the long-term plan of the partnership railway. In the plan, called In Partnership for Britain’s Prosperity, rail companies commit to improving customer satisfaction to remain the top-rated major railway in Europe. The latest figures show them going even further. The long-term plan will secure almost £85bn of additional economic benefits for Britain.
The new carriages represent an investment of at least £13.8bn by the private sector in rail. This is bolstering public investment in major upgrades to the railway infrastructure which, combined with new carriages, will enable the partnership railway to run more than 6,400 extra services each week by 2021, benefitting all parts of the country.
The partnership railway’s long-term rolling stock strategy, published later this spring, will say that the total number of carriages running on Britain’s railway is estimated to increase from 13,000 to 15,900 – an increase of 22 per cent.
The new carriages will mean the retirement of some of the oldest trains on the network with rolling stock that has more seats, Wifi, power points, improved accessibility, air-conditioning and, in the case of the Caledonian Sleeper, even double en-suite bedrooms.
Pacer trains, dating back to the 1980s, which operate in the north of England will be replaced with 281 new electric and diesel carriages with Wifi, power sockets and digital information screens. On Merseyrail, trains that are almost 40 years old will be replaced with state-of-the-art carriages with space for more people and sliding ramps that allow level boarding at each doorway.