ECML PROJECTS CONFIRMED

RAIL MINISTER Jo Johnson has confirmed the projects to be funded by the £780 million investment in the East Coast main line, announced by the Government on 23 July 2018.

In a written answer to a Parliamentary question, Mr Johnson said the investment will ‘deliver power supply upgrades between Doncaster and Edinburgh, a new rail junction near Peterborough, a new platform at Stevenage station and improvements to the track layout at King’s Cross Station’. The new junction near Peterborough refers to grade separation at Werrington Junction, for which Network Rail has recently received permission in the form of a Transport and Works Act Order (p25, last month). Absent from the list of improvements is the addition of a fourth track south of Peterborough between Woodwalton and Huntingdon, one of the schemes originally in NR’s East Coast Connectivity Fund. Timescales for completing the work remain unclear, with Mr Johnson only specifying that all upgrades will be completed ‘in the early 2020s’.

East Coast enhancements in CP6: East Midlands Trains power car No 43061 The Fearless Foxes, on hire to LNER, races through Huntingdon at the head of the 06.55 Skipton to King’s Cross service on 15 September 2018.
Graham Nuttall