City gets pounds 100m new rail link to Manchester; EXCLUSIVE Thirty-minute rail trip to Manchester.

Byline: ROB MERRICK

RAIL journeys from Liverpool to Manchester will be slashed to just 30 minutes under a pounds 100m scheme to electrify the ageing line, the Government will announce today.

Work on the 32-mile route - the oldest passenger line in Britain - will begin immediately and be completed within four years, Gordon Brown will pledge.

The four-carriage trains will be air-conditioned and will travel at 90mph - instead of the 75mph top-speed achieved by the current diesel trains, which take up to 54 minutes to crawl between the two cities.

The route will pass through Huyton and Newton-le-Willows. As well as being "greener", they will also be more reliable because electric trains have fewer moving parts and travel 40%far ther before breaking down. The announcement -which follows a long campaign for electrification by Mersey MPs and business leaders - will be hailed by the Prime Minister as a key plank of his plans for Britain's recovery. Mr Brown will say: "For commuters, the benefits of quicker, more comfortable and more reliable trips are obvious. "But there will also be enormous advantages to local economies, business and industry, through more jobs, increased tourism and additional freight traffic.

"This is a critical element in our radical plan for recovery and beyond - Building Britain's Future - because transition to a green economy will provide new growth, new jobs, new industries and new opportunities." The Prime Minister, attending a Cabinet meeting in Cardiff, will also announce the electrification of the London-to-Swansea Great Western line, which will cost a cool pounds 1bn. Work on the Liver pool-to- Manchester route will be carried out in two phases, to minimise disruption during the installation of electric cables and possible alterations to tunnels, bridges and stations. Newton-le-Willows to Liverpool will form the second phase. The Lime Street to Bootle Branch junction, and Earlestown East to Newton-le-Willows sections, are already electrified. Riverside MP Lousie Ellman said: "I am delighted. I have been campaigning for this for a long time, and this will make a major difference to Liverpool. "There have been complaints for a long time about the time it takes to travel the journey between Manchester and Liverpool, as well as poor carriages on the lines, and complaints about some overcrowding and unreliability. "This is modernising the line, speeding up the journey into Liverpool, and is part of our regeneration.

" Britain has fallen far behind other countries in electrifying services, with just 33%of the network upgraded. No major work has taken place since the electrification of the East Coast Main Line, way back in the late 1980s. Electric trains are also cheaper to buy than diesel trains and have room for extra passengers, because space is taken up in diesel trains by the engines. The upgrade will also provide an alternative route to Liverpool docks for electrically-operated freight trains - and the chance of electrified access to the proposed freight terminal at Parkside, near Newton-le-Willows. The Department for Transport insisted both projects would be "self-financing", paying for themselves through cheaper maintenance, leasing and operating costs. Experts say electric trains can halve the carbon dioxide output of diesel trains, although some green groups doubt the benefits. They say the crucial issue is where the electricity comes from - low-carbon sources such as wind farms, or "dirty" ones such as coal and gas-powered plants. OPINION: PAGE 8

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Work on the route will be in two phases Electric freight trains will also be able to reach Seaforth container terminal