NETWORK RAIL has assured Modern Railways that it is still on target to meet the ‘Hendy date’ for completing electrification from Paddington to Cardiff. According to Dean Shaw, Network Rail’s Media Relations Manager (Western): ‘Electrification to Cardiff still has a date of December 2018. However, to Chippenham is March 2019’. Both these dates are in line with the Enhancements Delivery Plan update sent by Network Rail Chairman Sir Peter Hendy to the Transport Secretary in 2016.
Mr Shaw was responding to a report in our November issue (p9), where we quoted Neil Thompson, Network Rail’s Infrastructure Projects Regional Director, who wrote in the pamphlet ‘Network Rail: Britain’s biggest builder’ that there is ‘a commitment to deliver the core section of electrification between Paddington and Cardiff by March 2019’.
