Network Rail debt breaches £28bn on higher spending Network Rail debt has breached £28bn. The net debt of rail infrastructure company Network Rail (NR) has soared to more than £28bn, it has been announced. The company said its net borrowings had risen from £27.2bn at the end of March 2012 to just over £28.04bn at the end of September 2012. NR said the increase was not unexpected and was primarily due to the funding of capital investment and to a lesser extent the increase in the valuation of RPI inflation-linked bonds. The net debt figure was disclosed as it announced its financial figures for the first half of the 2012/13 financial year. Profit after taxation rose sharply from £136m in the first half of 2011/12 to £573m in the period April-September 2012. Revenue was up from just under £3bn to £3.167bn. Capital expenditure - the amount invested in the railway over the period April-September 2012 - was £2,064bn compared to £2,071bn in the same period last year. NR added that the value of the railway network increased from £43,112bn at the end of March 2012 to £45,342bn at the end of September. The results come at a time when NR faces a tough challenge to cut costs as well as attempting to improve, at the behest of rail regulators, punctuality on long-distance services. NR group finance director Patrick Butcher said: "The railway continues to see strong traffic growth which provides us with the challenge of getting the balance right between capacity, reliability and efficiency. We have seen growth on the network of 5% a year for a decade and this is set to continue. That means we continue to become more efficient so we can continue to invest to meet this growth. He said the half-year level of expenditure was about the same as last year "despite the suspension of work during the Olympics and the reduction in activity following the achievement of key milestones on the King's Cross and Thameslink projects (in London) ." Butcher went on: "Our daily focus remains on running a safe, reliable and efficient railway service for passengers and freight users alike. While train punctuality is at high, historical levels NR recognises that on parts of the network performance is not as good as it should be. As we have before, we will continue to take any appropriate action to improve services.