MML wires may soon reach Wigston
TRANSPORT SECRETARY Grant Shapps announced investment of £249 million in the Midland main line on 18 November as he published the Integrated Rail Plan.
Extension of overhead electrification from Kettering to Market Harborough is expected to be among the schemes funded. Part of Key Output 1a of the line’s upgrade, this will connect the recently completed Bedford to Corby stretch (Key Output 1) to a new substation at Braybrooke. Mr Shapps said work on IRP schemes would begin before Christmas, although early works for the Market Harborough scheme on the MML have been in progress for some time. A target completion date of 2023 has previously been stated.
In a recent development, the wires could be further extended in the short-term from Market Harborough to Wigston South Junction, just south of Leicester, under what has been dubbed Key Output 1a+. Network Rail said it could not confirm what the investment announced by Mr Shapps covers until an update of the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline is published by the Government.
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Meanwhile, minutes of Network Rail’s 1 July 2021 board meeting, published on 26 November, indicate that cost reductions are being achieved with the MML Phase 3 project, covering electrification to Nottingham and Sheffield. At the meeting the board approved funding for completion of the final Outline Business Case for the scheme. It discussed how the MML3 team was learning from other electrification programmes, and noted the unit cost of the scheme was below benchmarks set out in the Railway Industry Association’s Electrification Cost Challenge report and below European comparators on a like-for-like basis. NR held a market engagement day for the MML3 scheme in July 2021, shortly after the board meeting.