Up to £47 billion is to be invested in Britain's railway over the next five years, Network Rail has announced.

The company has published its Control Period 6 (CP6) plan, which includes a 25% increase in funding in CP5 (2014 - 19) to reduce delays and improve infrastructure reliability across the network.

Mark Carne, Chief Executive, said passenger journeys over the next few years "will be transformed" as new trains enter service.

"By 2021 there will be almost 350,000 more services per year than today – an average of an extra 1,000 services a day, better connecting communities and driving economic growth across the country," he said.

"This plan builds on these improvements and sets out how we will make the railway more reliable and cost efficient and how we accelerate the technological transformation of our railway into the digital age."


The CP6 contains detailed route by route plans covering Network Rail's planned expenditure on operations, maintenance and renewals. In addition, a further £10bn railway enhancement fund has been made available by the Government for projects that may be delivered by Network Rail or others.

Key features include phasing out 'conventional' resignalling to make way for the railway's digital age, creating 6,400 more train services per week by 2021 and reducing the risk of accidents by a further 10% through better inspection techniques and better asset management, as well as making further significant strides in workforce safety.

The plan also contains some ambitious targets for the environment, gender balance and workers' health/wellbeing;

• Reducing energy consumption by 18%

• Reducing carbon emissions by 25%

• Reduce mental health absence by 30%

• Increase the number of women employed by 50%

Mr Carne said: "Britain's railways have seen a revival over the past decade or so and we have been working flat-out over the last five years to build new stations and new infrastructure to enable thousands of more services to come on stream to soak up that demand.

"For the next five years we need to relentlessly focus on making our railway more reliable while also ushering in new digital technology that with help to transform our railway in the years ahead."

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) will now review the plan and make a draft determination of Network Rail's funding needs in June, and a final determination in the autumn.

(LM)