The Government has slashed plans to buy new trains for inter-city routes from London to both Wales and Scotland.

The Labour government’s proposal to buy 1,400 new carriages – put on hold before the general election last year – has now been cut back to only 500.

The new trains with be a mixture of all-electric and bi-mode trains which will have a diesel engine to allow them to serve routes off the electric network.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond gave the go-ahead yesterday (1 March 2011) for the £4.5 billion “Intercity Express Programme”.

The new trains will replace InterCity 125 diesels on the Great Western in 2016 and InterCity 225 electrics on the East Coast main line in 2018.

They are likely to be built under a private finance initiative by Agility Trains, a consortium of Hitachi and John Laing, although no contract has yet been agreed.

Agility plans to build a factory at Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, which could create 500 jobs in two years time.

Hitachi built the Javelin trains currently being used on domestic high-speed services between London St Pancras and Kent.