Station costs probed by Panorama

NOT even the BBC's Panorama programme could crack the mystery of how much it actually cost to remodel Rugby's railway station.

The investigative programme this week tackled the subject of soaring rail fares and featured the town's station as an example of where costs of projects taken on by Network Rail had rocketed.

Redesigned between 2006 and 2008, the project was expected to cost around £200 million but is believed to have exceeded this considerably.

But the true amount of the overspend has never been revealed.

During the programme, screened on BBC One on Monday (January 16), presenter Vivian White spoke to Rugby Rail Users' Group member Jerry Thorne in the Wheeltapper pub on Railway Terrace.

Mr Thorne told him the project did nothing to improve the quality of service at Rugby's railway station.

"We suffered the pain and disruption while the work was going on, but the overall level of service at the end of it was poor," Mr Thorne told the programme.

Presenter Mr White then discussed the project with Cathryn Ross from the Office of Rail Regulation who called the soaring costs an 'oversight' but could not say how much had been overspent.

The remodelling of Rugby's station was dogged by setbacks, one of the main ones being in early 2008 when all train services were stopped because Network Rail failed to complete its work on time.

It was intended to dramatically improve capacity and journey times on the West Coast Mainline, with three new platforms built to allow high speed trains to pass through Rugby and allow more services to stop in the town.

Buildings at the station were also refurbished, alongside a massive overhaul of the signalling system around Rugby. It was completed late in 2008.