Lord Patten – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patten on 2016-01-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the utility for rail resilience purposes of the Yeovil to Exeter railway line when the Castle Cary/Taunton to Exeter St Davids railway line is blocked.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

As part of the resilience element of its Western Route Study, Network Rail assessed the route requirements which would support the diversion of an hourly Great Western Railway (GWR) service from Exeter to Castle Cary via Taunton to Exeter to Castle Cary via Yeovil in the event that the relevant section of the Great Western Main line is restricted by, for example, engineering works or severe weather.

This assessment concluded that additional infrastructure would be required to accommodate a combination of an additional hourly service between Exeter St Davids and Axminster and an hourly diversionary GWR service.

A copy of the Western Route Study has been placed in the Library.