'Realistic' Darling

Upgrades to the West Coast mainline between London and Glasgow will fall far short of original plans, it emerged on Wednesday.

The decision to scale back the modernisation came as the rail watchdog said the initial proposals did not deliver "value for money" to the taxpayer.

Project costs have soared after track renewal and replacement costs rocketed from £1.5 billion to £7.5 billion.Upgrade costs have doubled to £2.3 billion.

The much-delayed modernisation will cost up to £12.5 million a mile.

Some £9.8 billion is to be spent on 780 miles of the London to Scotland route, with work set to be completed in 2008.

Virgin's 125mph trains will be up and running by September 2004, although they will be unable to run at the 140mph initially proposed.

There are no plans in the new strategy for high-tech Italian Pendolino trains designed to run at 140mph - even though new rail stock has been commissioned.

Alistair Darling has blamed the retreat from continental high speed trains on Railtrack's poor management.

"What we are doing here is being realistic about the state of the railways. This was last done up seriously in the 1960s and we are paying the very heavy price for years of under-investment," he said.

"It is clear though that what [Railtrack] had in mind had not been thought out, had not been costed and there wasn't actually a plan for delivering it."

The transport secretary welcomed the modernisation timetable as an indicator that the Strategic Rail Authority was getting a grip on the project.

"What we now have is clear leadership in the railways, a clear sense of direction. We are getting to grips with the cost," he told the BBC.

Darling warned that long-suffering commuters could expect long delays.

"We have taken some bold decisions and it will be controversial to shut parts of the line for quite long periods next year and the year after so we can bring forward the work," he said.

The SRA's chairman, Richard Bowker, said the timetable would see "the elimination of a 20-year maintenance and renewal backlog in the shortest practical time".

"We are proposing a strategy that gets a grip for passengers, taxpayers and freight companies. It delivers reliable, high-quality inter-city services alongside the expanding commuter and freight sectors," he said.

"Once work is completed, the West Midlands, North West, Scotland and the Northampton lines to London will see material benefits."

The Rail Passengers Council welcomed SRA's modernisation strategy.

The watchdog played down the abandonment of the high speed plans and stressed the need to get trains running reliably, on time - at whatever speed.

"We're not all that bothered about the abandoning of 140 mph journeys on the line. Some may see that as a broken promise, but others thought 140 mph was an impossible dream," said council chairman, Stewart Francis.

"Line speed is not the key issue here - what is important is that passengers have a punctual and reliable service.

"If journey times are advertised as two hours from London to Manchester, then passengers need to know that every train on that route will run to time."