BBC NEWS ONLINE: East Coast Azuma trains thwarted by northern track

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Professor Karel Williams, of Manchester University, said the rail infrastructure across the country outside London was underinvested in, but said the East Coast main line had specific problems because it was "electrified on the cheap by British rail in the 1980s".

He said it needed upgrading to the standards of the West Coast Main Line, which was electrified two decades later at the cost of billions of pounds.