THE TRUE cost of upgrading Southampton's freight rail link to the midlands has been put at £60m in a funding bid submitted to the Government.

The figure has swelled by £7m since the plan seen as essential to take tens of thousands of lorries of the south's congested roads was first suggested.

Business leaders have backed the plans, which include £400m worth of improvements for Waterloo station the London end of the line for Hampshire trains.

The £460m worth of improvements are part of a £7 billion subsidy request from Network Rail, the not for profit company which maintains and operates infrastructure like tracks and main stations. It needs an additional £7 billion to invest in improvements to keep pace with the growth in passenger numbers, said chief executive John Armitt, pictured.

"The time has come to deal with the growing demands being placed on Britain's rail network," he said.

"We have seen remarkable growth over the past ten years 40 per cent more passengers and 60 per cent more freight and we're predicting similar increases, some 30 per cent, over the next ten years.

"The railway needs to develop and grow to accommodate this increasing demand and our proposals today go some way to ensure the future prosperity of rail use and of the UK economy in the years ahead."

Southampton's rail freight link needs upgrading because modern containers are too big to pass through some of the bridges on the line.

Such improvements would be welcomed by Southampton Container Terminals, the UK's second biggest container port, which has recently won a deal to handle an 150,000 extra containers a year on top of a current 820,000 a year.

Port director Doug Morrison said an increasing number of companies were using the bigger cont ainers which meant the percentage travelling by rail was falling "We are solidly behind this," he said. "The whole port community and all of Southampton City Council, Hampshire County Council and all those affected on the A34 will want to see this.

"The port doesn't benefit whether the containers leave by road or by rail but environmentally speaking we would like to see more leave by train."

Phillipa Edmunds a campaigner for pressure group Freight on Rail said: "This is a high priority project for the UK economy and the environment to modify the key freight corridor from Southampton to the West Midlands.

"If it costs £60m, then that is comparable to the cost of widening three kilometres of motorway so it's not that much in comparison.

"The project will not only keep the existing 1,000 lorries a day of the A34 but will also cater for the significant demand for additional container rail freight services.

"Remember that ton for ton container rail, freight produces 90 per cent less carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, than road transport."

Freightliner, which employs 187 staff at its Millbrook Terminals, handles the majority of rail freight from Southampton docks, roughly a third of the overall container volume. Rival EWS also has a small operation in the city.