Cardiff rail line upgrade announced

Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that government is to spend over a billion pounds to electrify the London to Cardiff railway, over 300 miles of track.The £1.1billion scheme should take eight years and will shorten a journey to Swansea by 20 minutes on the line that runs through Oxford, Reading and Newbury, Britain's busiest.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis told the BBC the massive investment involved would be worth it. "With the electric trains you get a quieter, cleaner, more reliable and much cheaper train which benefits passengers and it also benefits the taxpayers because it's much cheaper to keep an electric railway going...But you've got to put that upfront investment in. Governments historically have been very adverse to making long-term investments."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, at London's Paddington station for the announcement, said "This is the future. It's greener, it's cleaner, it's faster, it's more reliable. It's making the railways fit for the 21st Century and encouraging more passengers to use the railways,"

Network Rail will carry out the work and the government is also spending £100million to carry out similar work on the line between Liverpool and Manchester over the next four years.