A MAJOR investment strategy aims to improve passenger numbers, freight and punctuality while cutting operating costs across a fifth of UK railways, business leaders in York have been told.

Reducing serious accidents among railway workers to zero was also a priority, Phil Verster, route managing director of Network Rail, told York’s fifth Annual Business Leaders Forum.

Mr Verster, who is based in York, said in his presentation, Network Rail – Quietly Getting On With It, that a five-year £400 million annual investment plan aimed to deliver a 20 per cent increase in passengers and 25 per cent in freight across the London North Eastern and East Midlands Routes by 2018.

The London North East and East Midlands routes of Network Rail worked very closely with ten train operators and four freight operators to deliver daily services that carried 184 million passengers a year and moved 58 million freight-tonnes, including 72 per cent of the coal used in power generation.

Speaking at The Merchant Adventurers’ Hall to an invited audience of business leaders, he said: “The work environment on the railway is very dangerous, with fast-moving trains, moving equipment, heavy materials and a challenging working environment.”

But in spite of extensive safety training programmes and systems for working safely, he said four people had died during the last ten years while working on the London North East and East Midlands railways.

He said: “We want to make our railway among the safest in Europe.”

Mr Verster said safety was a huge undertaking, with 560 work sites a week to maintain and renew, 4,626 track miles, 5,137 bridges, 2,251 level crossings, 434 stations and 3,313 line buildings.

Network Rail was the biggest buyer of electricity and managed the third largest fixed telecommunications network in the UK. In many cases its investments and infrastructure modernisation were undermined by issues such as cable theft, reckless behaviours at level crossings and suicides.

Network Rail and the British Transport Police had been tackling cable theft through using covert cameras, security patrols, intelligence-led arrests and prosecutions.

He said: “We do extensive awareness campaigns to make people aware how dangerous level crossings are, but some people still take unnecessary and life-threatening risks.”