From the Birmingham Post:
Moor Street station expansion and faster trains to London announced
Jan 14 2010 by Christina Savvas, Birmingham Post
A dramatic expansion of Moor Street station will give Birmingham a second major rail terminal with high-quality and faster trains to London, Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has announced.
The £250 million investment will create the first new rail link from the capital to any major British city for over 100 years.
Journey times to London on the Chiltern line will be cut by a fifth to one hour 40 minutes, giving passengers a real choice between services from Moor Street and Virgin Trains services from New Street, which have been criticised for being too expensive.
The ambitious project to entice motorists onto trains was unveiled by Transport Secretary Lord Adonis and Chiltern Railways chairman Adrian Shooter.
Lord Adonis said the £250 million upgrade would transform links between Birmingham and London.
He announced the improvements during a visit to Birmingham to meet business leaders and city council leader Mike Whitby.
Lord Adonis said: I am announcing the extension of the Chiltern franchise in return for £250 million of investment, which Chiltern will put in to transform the line.
It will ensure journey times to London are cut to one hour 40 minutes.
This is very good news for Birmingham passengers and businesses, giving them a greatly enhanced service through the Chilterns and on to London and Marylebone. And it comes on top of the upgrade of the West Coast Main Line.
These two projects taken together have transformed the quality of transport links between London and Birmingham.
Part of the package is a big expansion of Birmingham Moor Street, which will now be the most significant second hub for trains from Birmingham to London.
The upgrade, which is scheduled for completion in December, will be supported by a £13.5 million project to open extra platforms, doubling capacity at Moor Street, where new ticketing technology will also be introduced.
There will be new trains with better acceleration, and new carriages.
Chiltern Railways, which holds the franchise to run services from Moor Street to Marylebone station in London, agreed to pay for the improvements after striking a deal with the Department for Transport.
Its franchise has been extended for seven and a half years, which means it will now run trains until at least 2021 if it provides a good service.
Although Chiltern already runs trains to London, the long journey time has meant they can be seen as a second-class option compared to Virgins services from New Street to London Euston, which use modern Pendolino trains on the West Coast Main Line.
Chiltern Railways chairman Adrian Shooter, said: Evergreen 3 is the biggest passenger rail project for several generations not to call on the taxpayer for support. Working closely with Network Rail, we are going to create a new main line railway for the people of Oxfordshire and the Midlands.
This deal demonstrates that real improvements to rail services can be paid for without public subsidy by attracting people out of their cars and onto trains.
Robin Gisby from Network Rail, said: This is a great scheme that will deliver huge benefits to hundreds of thousands of passengers.
The new investment will give Birmingham two high quality services at major stations, added Lord Adonis.
The Moor Street expansion also raises questions about plans to bring high speed rail services into the city - providing a third option for passengers commuting to London.
New Street does not have the capacity to cope with new high speed services, even once a £600 million refurbishment is completed. It means another city centre station is likely to be used, and Moor Street could be the obvious choice.
Lord Adonis would not comment on whether Moor Street would also be used for high speed rail services. The detailed proposals would be published in March, he said.
The Government is looking at a number of options for how High Speed Rail can access Birmingham.
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