Network Rail claims £100m investment boost in Wales
Nearly £100m has been invested to "significantly modernise" the railways in Wales in the last six months, Network Rail has announced.
The money has been spent on new platforms, lifts, information systems, signalling, footbridges and track.
Network Rail, which owns and operates Britain's rail infrastructure, said it was the biggest sustained investment programme since Victorian times.
It was responding to "tremendous growth" in passenger demand, it said.
In the six months from April to October, the company said it had invested in several schemes, including:
- modernising signalling in the Rhymney Valley and Vale of Glamorgan
- upgrading Cardiff Queen Street and Cardiff Central stations
- a new platform at Gowerton, Swansea
- bridge refurbishments, including one at Hawarden, Flintshire.
Mark Langman, route managing director for Network Rail Wales, said: "The railway continues to experience tremendous growth and we are responding to that demand through the biggest sustained investment programme since Victorian times.
"With a million more trains and half a billion more passengers than 10 years ago, Britain's railways are all but full.
"We are squeezing all we can out of the existing network and the railway must improve and grow to deliver the step-change in capacity that Britain's vital rail arteries need."