Last year in December the European Union announced that it would support with EUR 5 Million from the TEN-T Programme a project to improve rail infrastructure at various locations in the UK in order to accommodate longer trains and reduce travel times. The project will eventually yield faster rail transport, additional capacity and, as a consequence, an improved environmental performance.
The project in the UK, which was selected for funding under the 2011 TEN-T Annual Call, will support the necessary works to accommodate 775 m-long freight trains at various locations between the port of Southampton on the southern English coast and the West Coast Main Line at Nuneaton via Eastleigh, Winchester, Basingstoke, Reading, Didcot, Oxford, Leamington and Bordesley including an additional diversionary route from Leamington to Nuneaton via Coventry.
Station platforms will be lengthened to match the longer freight convoys and rail loops will also be readjusted on the affected sections. This will allow longer freight trains to travel from Southampton until the West Midlands and then further on to northern England and Scotland, thereby reducing the number of convoys on this stretch of infrastructure and improving multimodality.
As part of the project, freight bottlenecks along the route will also be addressed and, by allowing more freight to be moved by fewer trains, there will be a positive impact on the environment.
The project will be managed by the Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency (TEN-T). The execution of the project began in April 2012 and is set to be completed by December 2014.
Among the countries which have adapted their railway networks to permit the traffic of longer and heavier trains of 750 metres and 25 up to 30 tonnes are Sweden, Germany, France, Poland and Slovakia.
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