Travelling home to Swindon from Parliament on a Thursday evening and you are involuntarily entered into a contest.
You can sense the tension build as the information board declares that your chosen train is 'preparing'. The crowd begins to adjust their bags, ensuring that they are balanced on shoulders in such a way as to enable a straight sprint to the train. Some loiter speculatively at the ticket barriers in the hope of a head start. Tickets are ready in hands. The tannoy announces the platform, firing the starting gun for the race to claim a seat and avoid a journey wedged in a vestibule with one leg either side of the coupling.
The Great Western route that serves Swindon has seen a 42% increase in passenger journeys in the last 10 years. Journeys between London and Reading account for 6 of the 10 most crowded in the UK. I travel to London super off-peak return and yet even outside of peak times the trains are full. If I am running late, I have to stand.
Swindon commuters face this every day. The problem is twofold. Not only are the trains full, but the infrastructure is full also. It is simply not possible to get more trains down the track due to bottlenecks at Paddington and Reading. With demand sent to double by 2019, this is a serious problem.
It is a problem that we can solve and both Robert Buckland MP and I have been working hard to ensure that Swindon sees the benefits. Work recently started on the redoubling of the Swindon-Kemble line, easing capacity pressures for those who commute towards Cheltenham and beyond. We have put pressure on the Government to provide western access to Heathrow, so that our Town's businessmen and travellers can get a train directly to the airport without having to travel into London first. The Government has agreed to fund this £500m project.
The bottleneck at Reading is being removed as we speak and the Crossrail project will ease the pressure on Paddington. The Government recently provided First Great Western with the funding to convert 48 buffet carriages into standard class seating, a move that has seen more seats added to peak services. All these changes will help us to get more out of the railway we have got.
The big change will come with electrification which is due to be complete by 2016/17. This will instantly increase capacity by 20%, allow for more services and cut journey times. What's better, a Swindon firm won a large part of the contract. For a Town that was built on Brunel's Great Western Railway, it is only right that we are at the heart of its future.
