A YORK-based firm of rail consultant engineers and planners has been put in charge of investigating a new multi-billion pound rail link between London and the North, it was disclosed today.
It signals what could be a jobs bonanza for rapidly-growing WS Atkins Rail Limited, which has won the £1.3 million phased contract to work on a detailed feasibility study for a super-fast passenger-only line to run parallel to both the East Coast and West Coast Main lines by the year 2015.
The report should be ready in a year and will feed into the Government's strategy thinking for its ten-year transport plan, into which it plans to pour £180 billion.
The study has been commissioned by the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) which predicts that the existing two links between London and the North will hit capacity by 2010.
The firm, in Holgate Villa, Holgate Road, is the five-year-old rail division of the mighty WS Atkins group, which provides hi-tech consultancy and support services all over the world.
Updated: 11:11 Monday, November 12, 2001
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