Rail jobs provider Network Rail has announced multibillion pound investment plans this week.

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The money will be spent on making improvements including new lifts and stairways, new passenger information systems, new toilets and better lighting and CCTV, estimated to benefit around 2,000 countrywide stations.

Robin Gisby, operations and customer service director at Network Rail, said: "Stations are the railways' shop-front and they have been ignored for too long."

He added that at a time when train punctuality is "running at record levels" and other initiatives allow for the provision of a greater number of seats, the stations can now be given some needed attention.

It is not just funding from Network Rail that will make the changes happen, Assistance will come from organisations including the Welsh Assembly government, the Scottish Government and the Department for Transport.

Benefits will see the organisation spending a few thousand pounds on some stations moving on to larger projects escalating to millions of pounds in costs.

The works are scheduled to take five years.

Network Rail is currently divided into nine departments, in order to allow it to work tightly with freight and train companies.