Almost £430m was invested in infrastructure run by the Network Rail / South West Trains Alliance last year, Network Rail revealed today in its full year results for the 2013/14 financial year.

The investment equates to a 34.8 per cent rise on the previous year, and includes everything from extending platforms to new station buildings and renewing track.

Passenger growth on South West Trains has also continued to increase, rising 2.3 per cent in the past year – and by 50 per cent in the past decade.

John Halsall, infrastructure director for the Network Rail / South West Trains Alliance, said: “This record level of investment is matched by record passenger numbers and it is great that people are choosing to travel on our network. While we continue to build for the future, we are also absolutely focussed on improving day to day performance through continual upgrades of existing infrastructure and equipment.

“In the next five years we will also be investing more than £1.2bn in our rail network connecting Waterloo to Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire and beyond. This will form part of a wider programme to deliver an extra 115,000 seats a day into the capital by 2019.”

Nationally, Network Rail spent £6,884m, which equates to almost £20m a day.

In the wider south east, more than one billion passenger journeys are made on trains into London every year, equating to roughly three million passenger journeys each day.

Investment highlights from the Network Rail / South West Trains Alliance include:

-  Platform lengthening at 65 stations across the route
-  Introduction of first ten-car trains on Windsor-Waterloo line
-  Return to use of platform 20 in Waterloo International
-  New station building at Wokingham
-  New footbridges built at Alton and Farnham stations to improve accessibility
-  New footbridge built at North Sheen level crossing
-  170 improved customer information screens at stations across the route
-  £40m resignalling of the Poole-Wool line
-  Resignalling around Farnham
-  Renewal of track around and through Southampton Central