David Mackintosh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what improvements will be introduced on the West Coast Main Line after High Speed 2 comes into operation.

Claire Perry

Network Rail leads the industry long term planning process, and works with the Department for Transport, local transport authorities and operators to identify and consider future options for capacity improvement across the rail network as a whole.

Work is currently underway to consider how to manage and make best use of capacity on the West Coast Main Line once services on the first phase of HS2 are scheduled to start operating in 2026/27. This will include consideration of how any released capacity on the West Coast Main Line might be best used to serve places on the “classic” network.

In due course, the government will consider the options that are identified by this work. These options will feed into the government’s decisions on rail investment for the periods 2019-2024 and beyond, taking into account the recommendations of the Hendy, Bowe and Shaw reports.