Rail services from London to Birmingham will improve thanks to an £80million scheme to expand capacity on Chiltern Railways' route from Marylebone.
With the Treasury complaining about the cost of rail schemes, train operator Chiltern has aimed to be as cost effective as possible with what is described as a pioneer DBFT model - Design, Build, Finance and Transfer.
Most of the design work will be done in-house. Laing Rail, a subsidiary of Chiltern Railways’ parent company John Laing Group, will manage and deliver the project.
Chiltern has already carried out track-doubling work in a similar way, with its first Project Evergreen.
Now Project Evergreen 2 will provide two new platforms at the former Great Central terminus at Marylebone.
It will also upgrade the signalling, allowing up to 20 trains per hour to arrive or depart from Marylebone at peak times.
By straightening track at Beaconsfield, line speeds will be raised from 40mph to 75mph, removing one of the main bottlenecks on the Chiltern route.
Because of this work programme Chiltern Railways’ franchise will now run for at least 12 years. A third phase of work will trigger a franchise extension to 20 years.
Laing Rail will sell the enhanced infrastructure to Network Rail for a pre-agreed price when work is completed in 2006. Network Rail will then increase the track access fees it charges Chiltern to reflect the enhanced capacity of the route and the Government will increase Chiltern’s subsidy to reflect this.
Financing has been arranged through Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Europe with Laing Rail bearing the risks associated with construction.
Secretary of state for transport Alistair Darling said: "Passengers will really see the benefit from this huge project – the frequency of trains will increase and reliability will improve further.
"It is encouraging to see a new method of financing being put into practice, which results directly in enhanced services for those people using the railway.”
The new platforms at Marylebone will be made possible by the opening of Chiltern’s new Wembley depot, meaning sidings at the London terminus can be converted to platforms.
When the work is completed the station will have six platforms and will be able to hold one five-carriage train and five eight-carriage trains at any one time.
Other work to be undertaken as part of the project includes the installation of uninterruptible power supplies to keep signalling functioning in the event of a power cut.
New ticket gates and customer information systems will be provided at Marylebone station.
The extra trains will start running in two years.
Information from Transport Briefing.