Published on: Tuesday, 2 December 2014
Last updated: Wednesday, 5 October 2016
Abellio
Greater Anglia today welcomed the commitment made by the government to back the
key recommendations of the Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) Taskforce report.
Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin this morning confirmed that
he has asked Network Rail to continue developing improvements to the speed of
the line over the next few years and pledged that the Taskforce's
recommendations would be supported though the next franchising process. He also
made it clear that the government backed the report's analysis that the key
elements in upgrading this major regional rail route were better infrastructure
and state-of-the-art rolling stock.
Abellio Greater Anglia has been playing a pivotal role in the development of
the upgrade plans for the Great Eastern Main Line and the stakeholder alliance
which has been working to build the case for major investment and improvement
initiatives to be approved - as well as helping to promote the proposals. The train
operator has also been a committed and enthusiastic member of the Great Eastern
Rail Taskforce, with Head of Corporate Affairs Jonathan Denby representing the
company and leading its significant contributions to the preparation of the
Taskforce's report.
Commenting on the announcement, the Managing Director for Abellio Greater
Anglia, Jamie Burles said: "We are delighted that the government is
backing the recommendations of the Great Eastern Rail Taskforce, in which we
are key participants. We have played a proactive role in the development of
both the business case supporting this major route upgrade and the creation of
a broad-based stakeholder and customer alliance to effectively advocate and
champion this substantial boost for East Anglia's rail network - and all the
communities and economies served by the GEML.
“We can now look forward to real enhancements to services on the GEML over the next decade. The positive momentum will start to really gather pace early in the New Year as our major refurbishment programme for the current intercity trains gets underway. We will continue to play our full part in taking forward improvements on the GEML, working with other stakeholders to make sure the plans are delivered as soon as practical, by maintaining the cross-party, cross-regional, cross-industry alliance that has been instrumental in the success of the initiative to date."