Train station 'needs £19m boost'

Nottingham train station needs £19m of improvements to signalling, according to councils, train operators and MPs.

The signalling and layout of the station dates from the late 1960s.

A £19m scheme to upgrade signalling in the area would, it is claimed, help cut delays and boost the station's capacity, but has yet to be approved.

Rail Officer for Nottinghamshire County Council Jim Bamford said existing problems would continue unless action was taken.

'Upgrade needed'

"Most of the people who've ever travelled on a train in and out of Nottingham will experience this business where you get to within a few hundred yards of the station and the train stops and waits for a couple of minutes.

"And the reason it does that is because Nottingham station area is so congested, the train is waiting for what's technically called a "path", a sort of route through," he said.

Councillor Jane Urquhart added: "What we'd like to do over the next few years, is increase the capacity of the station and increase the reliability of the services that we currently have.

"And without this upgrade we won't be able to do that, so things'll just stay as they are unless we get the upgrade."

Mr Bamford and other interested parties plan to ask the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) to implement the recommendations.

A total of £55m is to be spent by 2011 to redesign Nottingham train station and improve tracks between the city and London.