John Redwood

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Rt. Hon John Redwood pressed the Secretary of State for Transport to use friction and traction technology to ensure increase rail capacity in the United Kingdom

16 May 2007

In the House of Commons yesterday, the Rt. Hon John Redwood pressed the Secretary of State for Transport to use friction and traction technology to ensure increase rail capacity in the United Kingdom.

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): More people would use rail services at busy times if there were more seats and more regular services. Will the Secretary of State look into the technology to see how we can get more friction and traction for trains that run on commuter lines, so that we can double the number of trains that use the existing lines? That cannot be done at the moment because there is not the technology.

Mr. Alexander: Perhaps rather unusually, I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman in recognising— [Interruption.] Perhaps I will live to regret that comment. I join him in recognising capacity as a serious challenge. That is why I announced in March, when we published the high level output specification, that we will specify 1,000 extra carriages for the rail network. However, that is without prejudice to the continuing work that we need to take forward on, for example, considering platform lengthening or the possibility of double-decker trains. The number of trains that we can run on the existing network is limited, but I assure the House that we are seriously considering all options to make full use of that network.