PRESSURE was mounting last night for Network Rail to spend millions in recouped fines on improving the West Coast Main Line.

The company confirmed yesterday it was lobbying for a record £14m fine to be ploughed into passenger improvements.

The Office for Rail Regulation (ORR) stung the rail operator with the charge last week after crippling delays to services over the Christmas and New Year holiday.

But there are concerns the passengers who suffered – including thousands on the main line between Liverpool and London – will not enjoy the benefits of the re-invested fine.

Neither Network Rail nor the ORR would offer guarantees last night that the money, if it was given back to the operator, would be spent on the West Coast line specifically or on passengers in general.

Louise Ellman, Liverpool Riverside MP and senior member of the Commons Transport Select Committee, said: “The money must be spent here, but Network Rail must also improve their efficiency – we don’t want more setbacks.”

Mrs Ellman called for upgrades to signals and the overhead lines.

She also pressed Network Rail to employ more workers in-house instead of contracting out and improve its management systems.

Rail watchdog Passenger Focus called for mobile phone transmitters to be installed in the Edge Hill to Lime Street tunnel, for a raft of improvements to passenger information systems and for Network Rail to bankroll upgrades to Virgin Trains-managed stations.

Ashwin Kumar, Passenger Focus’s passenger director, said: “We don’t want the fine to disappear into the Treasury. Instead we want it spent on passenger benefits.”

In a written response to the Commons, junior transport minister Tom Harris said Network Rail was “urgently exploring” the option of funding customer improvements to the same amount instead of paying the fine.

A spokesperson for Network Rail said there were no plans to improve the West Coast Main Line over what is already in the pipeline.

She added: “There’s no decision as to where those funds might go yet.

“We didn’t want it to go back to government coffers, that’s why we said at the time we wanted to discuss with the ORR to channel the money into improvements.”

She said any ring-fencing of the money would be done by the ORR or central government.

A spokesperson for the ORR said: “No decisions have yet been taken.”

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