The record investment amounts to almost £20m a day on new stations, platforms, lifts, footbridges and new track to build a bigger, better railway.

According to the latest accounts released today the rail infrastructure business almost made a £1.35bn profit, up from restated profits of £747m the year before.

Mark Carne, chief executive, said: “We are in the middle of a rail renaissance, with record levels of passenger numbers and record levels of investment. This flourishing sector is investing heavily to improve the railway for today and for tomorrow.”

Over the year, 90% of train services ran to time, 2.5 percentage points below the regulatory target.

While some of this shortfall was caused by congestion as the railway witnessed growth of 5.7% in passenger journeys during the year, extreme weather and slower improvements in asset reliability also played a part.

Carne continued: “We will increase the reliability of the network and make it more resilient to climate change. Continued investment in our railway will also be key if we are to grow our economy and deliver a better, improving, expanding rail network for millions of daily users.”

Over 5,000 projects have been completed over the course of the last five years (control period 4 – CP4 – 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2014).

More than 2,000 miles of track renewed and improvements were made to over 500 stations across the country.

Over 140 platforms lengthened across London and the South East and almost 200 lifts installed at stations countrywide.