M40 Trains has secured the first 20-year franchise awarded by Britain's Strategic Rail Authority. The new Chiltern Railways agreement was signed on February 18 and starts this month. M40 won the original seven-year Chiltern franchise in July 1996, but the SRA called bids for a longer replacement and chose M40 as preferred bidder in August 2000.

John Laing Group, which holds 84% of M40 Trains, is committed to securing investment totalling £371m. The existing fleet of 118 DMU cars, plus seven under construction, will be expanded to 256 cars by 2022 if anticipated traffic growth materialises. Passenger journeys in 2010 are expected to be 50% higher than the 11·7 million carried in 2001, which was 57% up on 1995-96 before M40 took over.

M40 had already procured £70m of investment under the original franchise, and will extend hourly services beyond Birmingham to Kidderminster in September. By August, the doubling of 43 km that was singled in 1967 will be completed.