As we reported last night, the Government has today released full details of the new Integrated Rail Plan.

£96 billion is being spent to improve journeys across the North and the Midlands, and in some cases, more quickly than under earlier plans.

Under the new plans, rail links will be transformed, including:

• Northern Powerhouse Rail will see train travel taking just 33 minutes from Leeds to Manchester, down from the 55 minutes.
• HS2 East will run from Nottingham to Birmingham in 26 minutes down from 1 hour 14 minutes. HS2 East will run from Nottingham to London in just 57 minutes, and from Sheffield to London in just 1 hour 27 minutes.
• HS2 West will run from London to Manchester in 1 hour 11 minutes, and from Birmingham to Manchester in 41 – 51 minutes.

Journey times for passengers are set to be the same as, similar, or faster than previous plans, with improvements coming up to a decade earlier than planned.

Earlier plans meant that Doncaster, Grantham, Huddersfield and Wakefield would have been left out, or even seeing their services cut back. The IRP will improve these links to deliver improvements with less disruption to communities.

Local lines and inter-city lines, passengers will see tangible changes, including more seats, shorter journeys and more reliable services.

Credit: DfT

As well as the new HS2 lines, the IRP will fully electrify the Midland Main Line and the TransPennine Main Line, as well as providing power improvements, higher speeds and digital signalling to the East Coast Main Line.

For Northern Powerhouse Rail, the Government has chosen the first options put forward in 2019 by Transport for the North.

The package of investment confirms several new lines, including:

• The completion of HS2 from Crewe to Manchester, including new stations at Manchester Airport and Manchester Piccadilly.
• New high-speed line between Birmingham and East Midlands Parkway, with trains continuing to Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield on an electrified Midland Main Line.
• A new high-speed line between Warrington, Manchester and Marsden
• A study into the best way to take HS2 trains to Leeds, including capacity at the station.

The package also sees the upgrading of three lines:

• Completing the electrification of the Midland Main Line from London to Sheffield
• Rapid upgrades to the East Coast Main Line to the East Midlands, Yorkshire and North East.
• Full electrification of the TransPennine Main Line from Manchester to Leeds and York, with digital signalling and more sections of three and four tracked sections to allow fast trains to overtake stopping services.  An additional £625m worth of funding has been confirmed to progress the TransPennine Route Upgrade (TPU)
• 180 miles of railway will be electrified and will mean that 75% of the main lines in the UK will be electric.

The government will also free up money to improve local services to integrate them with NPR and HS2:

• A new mass transit system of Leeds and West Yorkshire. £200m of immediate funding is available to plan the project.
• Halve the journey times between Bradford and Leeds to be as low as 12 minutes.
• Better connectivity between West and East Midlands
• Roll out of contactless ticketing

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “My mission is to level up opportunity across our country, which is why we’re making train journeys faster and more reliable through the biggest ever public investment in our rail network.

“This is because better rail connections are essential for growing local economies and businesses, and our Integrated Rail Plan will deliver better services to more people, more quickly.

“Levelling up has to be for everyone, not just the biggest cities. That’s why we will transform transport links between our biggest cities and smaller towns, ensuring we improve both long-distance and vital local services and enabling people to move more freely across the country wherever they are.”

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “Our plan is ambitious, deliverable and backed by the largest single government investment ever made in our rail network. It will deliver punctual, frequent and reliable journeys for everyone, wherever they live.

“Just as the Victorians gave this country our railways nearly 200 years ago, this Integrated Rail Plan will create a modern, expanded railway fit for today and future generations. Significant improvements will be delivered rapidly, bringing communities closer together, creating jobs and making places more attractive to business, and in doing so, rebalancing opportunity across the country.

“Our plans go above and beyond the initial ambitions of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail by delivering benefits for communities no matter their size, right across the North and Midlands, up to 10 to 15 years earlier.”