'Ambitious' rail plan unveiled

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The expansion, revealed in a rail White Paper, revealed that the percentage of annual rail funding coming from passenger fares would rise from around 50% now to 75% by 2014.

The White Paper, unveiled by Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, gave the go ahead for the long-delayed £5.5 billion north-south cross-London Thameslink project.

There will also be a £425 million improvement at Reading station in Berkshire and the Government will contribute £120 million towards improvements at Birmingham New Street station. There will also be 1,300 extra carriages on the most crowded routes and £150 million will go into improving and upgrading 150 stations. There will be longer trains and longer platforms.

Also the Government said it wanted train companies to increase the number of trains running on time from the present 88% to 92.6% by 2014.

The White Paper said that season tickets and book-in-advance saver fares would continue to be regulated until 2014, which means they cannot rise annually by more than 1% above the inflation rate.

The Government is now working with the rail industry to introduce a new simplified fares structure in which there will be just four types of ticket - anytime, off-peak, super off-peak and advance, with the anytime fare being the most expensive.

While Government money for the railways will amount to £15.3 billion between 2009/14, passenger revenue is expected to account for £39.2 billion over the same period. In 2009/10, for instance, Government money invested in the railways will be £3.2 billion while passenger revenue will be £6.7 billion.

By 2013/14, Government money will actually have gone down to be £3 billion, while passenger revenue will be up to £9 billion. The Government is basing rail finances on the prediction that the railway will expand by at least 180 million passenger journeys a year.

While the Government remains committed to the £15 billion west-east cross-London Crossrail scheme, there was no mention in the White Paper of just how much Government money will go into the project. The White Paper also ruled out the introduction of magnetic levitation high-speed Maglev trains, saying they were too expensive.