Network Rail chair condemns billions squandered on botched GWR electrification

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The disastrous project to electrify the Great Western railway lines to South Wales and the West of England has been condemned by the chair of Network Rail. Sir Peter Hendy told the Transport Select Committee: “I’ve been in Network Rail for six years and we’re all scarred by the Great Western electrification – which was the project from hell because it was agreed largely originally over a weekend with no idea what its scope was and no idea of how much it cost. “They may run on electric power for most of the trip, but then they’re carting around a lot of dead-weight in diesel engines and fuel.” The new railways White Paper gives the GWR electrification as an example of “multi-billion-pound, taxpayer-funded investments and upgrades that should have been, and will in the long term be, a boon turned into a fiasco.” The cost increased from an expected £800m to £2.8bn – an overspend of 350 per cent.