Liverpool City Region train passengers are to benefit from £340m of rail improvements over the next three years.
Network Rail is contributing £229m, and the Liverpool City Region £111m – much through the Government’s Growth Deal funding – to provide passengers with faster, more frequent and more reliable train services by 2019.
The improvements are part of Network Rail’s Northern Programmes – several billion pounds’ worth of work included in the company’s £40 billion nationwide Railway Upgrade Plan, delivered across the five years to 31 March 2019 – and will help to meet a forecast 100 per cent increase in demand for rail travel across the region. By 2043 there will be double the number of passengers entering Liverpool in the morning peak.
The plan is designed to provide more capacity, relieve crowding and respond to the tremendous growth the railway has seen.
They will pave the way for additional services, such as planned new First Transpennine Express services from Liverpool to Glasgow in 2019, and new services from Liverpool to Chester.
Among the work to take place, new and longer platforms at Liverpool Lime Street station will accommodate more services and longer trains. A new station will be built at Maghull North, while Newton-le-Willows station will be revamped, with improvements including a new bus interchange and extended car park facilities and a new booking hall on the south side of the station, with improved access to facilities via new lifts, subway and stairs.
New sections of railway will enable improvements to journeys, with frequent new services planned between Liverpool and Chester – if approved, work is expected to begin in June 2017 and be completed by May 2018 – and the ambition to extend these into North Wales. New track between Huyton and Roby will allow faster trains to overtake local services, completing work undertaken at Huyton in 2014. Tracks on the underground loop on the Merseyrail network will also be renewed.
Network Rail has been working closely with partners to ensure that robust alternative travel arrangements are in place while these improvements are carried out.
Merseytravel is the strategic transport advisor to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and project lead for a number of the schemes.