North West England electrification schemes

It is planned that these schemes will result in a modernised, cleaner, lower carbon and faster railway with improved capacity.

[4] It also included the line from Crewe to Liverpool with Warrington Bank Quay, Wigan and Preston following in the early 1970s.

[5] There was a pause in electrification projects in the late 1960s when money ran out but then the West Coast Main Line north of Weaver Junction through the northwest of England to just south of Glasgow was electrified progressively between 1970 and 1974.

[6] The line from Preston to Blackpool was also proposed as a logical extension for electrification in conjunction with the Weaver Junction to Glasgow scheme in a document published by the British Railways Board in April 1968.

In 1956, British Rail adopted 25 kV AC OHLE as standard for most electrification projects.

In 2007 Gordon Brown became Prime Minister and selected Andrew Adonis as Secretary of State for Transport.

[13][14] The 2009 Adonis/DfT paper specifically stated that the work would commence immediately on the line between Liverpool and Manchester and a four-year time frame was given.

[28] In July 2017, Chris Grayling, the secretary of state for transport announced a number of electrification schemes were to be cancelled including the Lakes Line from Oxenholme to Windermere.

This electrification scheme is claimed to also improve logistics and not have diesel trains running under the wires.

[42][43] In September 2020 the TDNS Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy Interim Business case was published but dated July 31, 2020.

The principal recommendation was further electrification of 13,000 km (single track kilometres) of UK railways.

[48][49] The scheme also involved building and electrifying the Ordsall Chord to connect Manchester Victoria and Piccadilly stations.

[58] A link is introduced from HS2 to Liverpool via a section of new high speed line from reinstated low-level platforms at Warrington Bank Quay and onwards via upgraded sections to join the existing line to Liverpool Lime Street.