{"id":24629,"date":"2024-04-04T01:37:37","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T15:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=24629"},"modified":"2024-04-04T01:37:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T15:37:37","slug":"network-rail-announce-2-8b-investment-to-protect-railway-from-climate-change-and-extreme-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=24629","title":{"rendered":"Network Rail announce \u00a32.8b investment to protect railway from climate change and extreme weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

Network Rail has announced it intends to invest around \u00a32.8 billion over the next five years on protecting the railway from climate change and extreme weather.<\/strong><\/p>\n

These measures will include making embarkments more resilient, recruiting nearly 400 additional drainage engineers, training hundreds of operational staff to better interpret weather forecasts, and installing CCTV at sites with a high risk of flooding.<\/p>\n

Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines said: \u201cClimate change is the biggest challenge our railway faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extreme weather of the past year, that has seen an unprecedented 14 named storms, has taken its toll on our railway \u2013 with experts predicting more of the same to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are responding to that challenge with a huge investment in making our railway more resilient and better-performing for rail users during such events.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can never completely weatherproof our railway, but we can be better prepared and mitigate the worst that Mother Nature throws at us \u2013 now and into the future \u2013 to keep passengers and services safe and moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

This spending is part of Network Rail\u2019s \u00a345.4 billion investment plan for the five years from April 1.<\/p>\n

It plans to spend \u00a319.3 billion on replacing old assets with new, as well as investing in other capital expenditure projects such as digital signalling, \u00a312.6 billion on maintenance, \u00a35.3 billion on support functions such as timetabling and IT, and \u00a34.4 billion on operations such as signalling. \u00a31.8 billion will be put in a \u201crisk fund\u201d for unforeseen events.<\/p>\n

The majority of Network Rail\u2019s income (\u00a329.8 billion) will come from grants from the UK and Scottish Governments. It will also receive \u00a313.8 billion in track access charges from train operators, and \u00a31.7 billion commercial income such as from retail and property.<\/p>\n

Mr Haines said: \u201cTrain performance has been suffering and the industry must come together and make this, and tackling climate change, our main focus.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur role is to deliver a safe railway that people can rely on, whatever the weather, with trains that turn up and arrive at their destination on time, and where passengers have confidence they are in safe hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what we must deliver daily and what we should, and will, be held to account for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rail minister Huw Merriman said: \u201cOur railways are at the heart of many people\u2019s daily lives and getting us to where we need to be, whether that\u2019s to family and friends, work, education or holiday destinations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why the network must be fit for the future, with the resilience to handle extreme weather while offering the reliability and level of service our passengers deserve.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am confident the plan set out by Network Rail today will help keep our railways on track for the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Network Rail said taking inflation into account, its spending over the next five years will be \u00a342.8 billion in real terms compared with \u00a343.0 billion in the previous five years. Enhancements are funded separately and not included in this plan.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Network Rail has announced it intends to invest around \u00a32.8 billion over the next five years on protecting the railway from climate change and extreme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153,387,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-railways","category-scotlands-railway","category-uk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t