Christian Irwin, Network Rail's North West and central region capital delivery director, speaks about the power being turned on for the new cables in the £100m project to electrify the line between Wigan and Bolton
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00:00Yeah, so today's a big milestone to get the energisation of the electrification system.
00:06It gives us several months now of testing the system, making sure that it's working
00:11as it's designed to work, and then what we'll go through is a process that will bring it
00:15into operational service, and at the latter part of 2025 we'll start operating electric
00:21trains on the railway between Wigan and Bolton.
00:23What are the main benefits of electrifying a section of the railway?
00:27I mean, one of the biggest benefits of electrification is its decarbonisation.
00:31We're not running trains using diesel anymore, we'll be running trains through this section
00:35using highly green electric energy, which is fantastic.
00:41Trains will be quieter, trains will be more efficient, and our passengers will get a better
00:46experience travelling through this area.
00:48As Capital Delivery Director, this must be a really proud moment to see all of this infrastructure
00:55now in place, and it's switched on and working.
00:58Yeah, this scheme's been operating since 2018.
01:02We have, it's a great opportunity to electrify another part of the North West network, and
01:07you know, the aspiration is to just provide the greenest journeys that we can for our
01:12passengers, and it's a really proud moment.
01:15It's been a lot of effort, a lot of hard work, we've had some difficult circumstances over
01:19the last few weeks with lots of cable theft, but we've recovered that situation and it's
01:23just a really proud moment to deliver an energised railway that we can start to now finalise
01:29and get ready for passenger services later on this year.