EAST COAST MAINLINE PROGRAMME

Infrastructure and Construction

Record date: 31 March 2026

Whole-life cost: £1.3bn
Published schedule: 01/04/2014 – 03/05/2027
NISTA delivery confidence: Not disclosed
Senior responsible owner: Rosemary Hopkins

What the project is for

A collection of track and power upgrade schemes between London King's Cross and Edinburgh to increase capacity and to enable the introduction of the Azuma fleet and a recast route timetable.

Departmental delivery commentary

The route's recast timetable - required to deliver the benefits of the programme - was introduced successfully in December 2025. This was not able to accommodate all of the services envisaged in the programme's business case in 2018, and so work is now underway to re-baseline the benefits of the investment.

Schedule

The infrastructure enhancements required to enable introduction of the recast timetable were completed successfully to schedule. Remaining works are for resilience purposes only, and scheduled for completion in May 2027.

Cost

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the project's departmentally agreed Whole Life Cost at 25/26-Q4 increased from £1114m to £1122m. This is primarily due to increased costs associated with remaining power supply upgrade works on the route.

Benefits

Following introduction of the route's recast timetable, work is now underway to reappraise the benefits of the programme, which will be recorded once this work is complete.