The City and County Councils have joined forces with local Members of Parliament and train operator East Midlands Trains to push for a re-think on dropping a long-planned signalling upgrade at Nottingham.

Whilst welcoming the success of the campaign to invest £55m to speed-up the train service to London, the councils and local rail operators want to secure a £19m scheme to upgrade track and signalling in the Nottingham Station Area, which has not been approved by the Office of Rail Regulator (ORR).

The partners have been lobbying Government for track improvements between London and Nottingham to speed up trains, as well as developing £60m plans to transform Nottingham Station to boost the future prosperity of one of the fastest growing core cities in England.

The ORR has recently announced its view on Network Rail’s investment Programme for 2009 to 2014 and its endorsement of £55m for Midland Mainline speed up works is welcomed. This will allow a series of improvements to raise the speed of the line at various locations between Nottingham and London. Taken together the time saved would allow the standard Nottingham to London journey time to be cut to 90 minutes from December 2011.

However, unless they can be persuaded to change their mind in the current consultation period, only a basic like for like track replacement scheme costing around £60m will go ahead in 2011. The loss of the signalling upgrade would effectively cement the existing 1968 Station layout in place with all its attendant inflexibility and reliability problems for at least the next thirty years.

This means the station will not be able to handle any new additional services over this period. The new services planned for this autumn to Leeds and Matlock will have to struggle with the outdated layout and its reliability issues.

It would also limit any potential speed increase and platform capacity increase to assist with the ‘Nottingham in 90’ speed up, and reduce the potential for Robin Hood Line service enhancements to sort out its poor performance in terms of reliability.

Councillors have branded the decision not to implement a full package of track improvements alongside the ambitious plans for transforming Nottingham Station ‘perverse.’

Councillor Jane Urquhart, City Councillor with responsibility for Transport said:

"We are very pleased with the Midland Mainline speed-up funding announcement and the progress we are making towards delivering a world-class station at Nottingham with our ‘Hub’ proposals. To do all this but leave the station saddled with its existing layout and all its current problems seems to us to be perverse, particularly when authorities across Greater Nottingham are facing the challenge of delivering on an ambitious agenda for growth and planning for over 60,000 new houses over the next 20 years.

"This announcement takes us back to 1968 where the rail industry was planning for contraction not growth. Reliability and performance problems have been a big problem at Nottingham for years. £19m is a drop in the ocean in rail investment terms. We will be urging the Office of the Rail Regulator to recognise the overwhelming case for these works."

Councillor Stella Smedley, County Council Cabinet member for Transport said:

"The investment in the Midland Main Line has been the subject of a 2½ year campaign, and its approval is excellent news. It will give Nottingham the fastest ever train service to London, in just 90 minutes, which is crucial for the future of the local economy.

"However, we think that the ORR has not realised that the upgrade to the Nottingham station signalling is part of the overall MML scheme, and is crucial for having a reliable railway - which is exactly what the ORR is supposed to be concerned about. There is a very strong Business Case made for these works.

"Without the upgrade, plans to provide reliable services for the people of Nottinghamshire will be impossible to realise, and no improvement would be possible for at least thirty years. Identifying and correcting errors like this is exactly why there is a consultation period. We will be calling on all our partners to press for a reversal of this oversight, and trust the ORR will change their draft decision."

John Heppell, Member of Parliament for Nottingham East said:

"I’m delighted this Government is the first in decades to commit significant money to speed up services on the Midland Mainline. However I can’t understand the logic of replacing signalling and track in the Nottingham area without taking the opportunity to introduce such obviously needed layout improvements at the same time. I’ll be looking to support the local authorities, train operators and all the other local partners in any way I can to get a sensible outcome in this matter."

Dr Nick Palmer, Member of Parliament for Broxtowe said:

"I am delighted that we are getting a major investment in the line south from Beeston. Concerned that the East and West Coast lines were getting billions of investment and we have had none for almost half a century, I called an urgent meeting last year, with the Minister Tom Harris. As a result a feasibility study was agreed and we now have a positive result. However, I will continue to lobby for improvements for the Beeston to Nottingham section, to prevent having our trains being held in a traffic queue due to congested track layouts."

David Horne, Commercial Director for East Midlands Trains said:

"Whilst it is great news that the ORR is supporting the investment which will cut journey times, it is disappointing news for passengers in Nottingham that the track upgrade at Nottingham station has not been included as well. Network Rail have a unique opportunity to carry out an upgrade of the system whilst other work takes place. If we miss this chance then in the longer term providing further journey time improvements for Nottingham to London will become much more of a challenge.

"We would urge the Rail Regulator to reconsider and revert to the original plan, seizing this chance to invest in the region and bring improvements for future passengers on our network."

Notes

Two rail infrastructure enhancement schemes that have been worked on for some time were included in Network Rail’s Strategic Business Plan published in 2007:

• The Midland Main Line (MML) speed-up scheme, to reduce the Nottingham - London journey time to 90 minutes, and

• Enhancements to the track layout at Nottingham station and environs, to reduce the current congestion and delays, and to increase capacity. Essentially the Upgrade scheme comprises new lengths of track and an upgraded more flexible track layout at the station which not only would make existing operations more reliable but also provide capacity to add in more services

• There is an overlap between the 2 schemes, as the Nottingham enhancement should give more confidence in achieving the time saving to London (plus benefits to other services)

Inclusion in the Strategic Business Plan meant that Network Rail wants to invest in both schemes, but it has to get approval from the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) to get the funds.

Latest development

On Thursday 5th June 2008, ORR announced its ‘Draft (i.e. provisional) determination’:

- The Midland Mainline (MML) speed-up works are included, but at a reduced allocation of £55m. This is a significant step forward for Nottingham’s rail service, as it will be the most significant upgrade to the MML since 1982.

- The £19m Nottingham Station Area resignalling upgrade is not considered to be justifiable by the ORR criteria and is therefore not included in the recommended programme. This means that the resignalling works for the Nottingham area will revert back to a ‘like for like’ replacement of the current layout with no improvements. The un-enhanced scheme should still proceed in 2011/12.

The ORR decision will be subject to consultation until 4th September, with publication of the final decision on 30th October

Why the enhancement of the station layout is important

• The current layout is very inflexible - so trains often have to stop outside the station waiting for other trains to pass through, causing frequent delays
• Because of the inflexibility, all trains have a couple of minutes added to their schedule to accommodate the frequent delays. Without the enhancement, Nottingham - London journey time would probably be 92 minutes, not 90.
• The scheme would make all tracks fully flexible, minimising delays to all trains
• The scheme would speed-up all trains going north to Manchester, Leeds and the Robin Hood Line by 2 minutes
• The scheme would increase flexibility for schedules on the Robin Hood Line, thereby allowing schedules that are much less prone to delay further north.
• The new layout will last at least 40 years, so its shortcomings will last till 2052
• The station is already operating at capacity. Indeed two services - to Stoke and to Coventry - were cut out in 2005 specifically because the layout couldn’t cope and the congestion was causing severe delay to all trains. In December 2008 two new train services will start - to Leeds every hour, and to Matlock every hour - which is excellent news. But the station needs the enhancements to accommodate these extra services reliably. Without the enhancements all trains would risk reverting to the previous unreliability.