Media centre

Wednesday 30 Mar 2016

Easter rail improvements signal better journeys for passengers in Wales

Region & Route:

| Wales & Western: Wales & Borders

| Wales & Western

Network Rail’s orange army successfully completed the planned upgrade of the railway in the Cardiff area over the Easter weekend and on Tuesday 29 March.

Despite Storm Katie doing her best to disrupt the £60m improvement works across Britain’s rail network over Easter, a record-breaking 450 engineering projects were completed on time, part of the company’s £40bn Railway Upgrade Plan to provide a bigger, better, more reliable railway for passengers and businesses.

The work in Wales focussed on the latest phase of the Cardiff Area Signalling Renewals project to modernise the Cardiff and Valleys network and was delivered on time by Network Rail engineers who worked day and night through spells of strong winds and heavy rain.

Improvements included upgrading track and signalling on the railway in and around Cardiff Central station, which will help to improve the reliability of the rail services in the area.

Paul McMahon, route managing director for Network Rail Wales, said: “Our team worked round the clock over Easter, in some difficult weather conditions, to deliver our Railway Upgrade Plan. These improvements will mean better, more reliable journeys for the record numbers of passengers using the railway in Wales.

“We replaced ageing signalling equipment with more reliable modern technology, upgraded the track, and modified sections of platforms 6 and 7 in Cardiff Central station.

“I’d like to thank the travelling public for their patience and understanding as we delivered this vital work to improve their journeys.’’

The work was timed to take advantage of a relatively quieter time of the year when, on average, fewer than half the usual 4.5m people use the railway each day – enabling Network Rail and train operators to minimise disruption as much as possible.

Lynne Milligan, customer services director for Arriva Trains Wales said:  “We are pleased that everything has gone smoothly over the weekend and into Tuesday.  We’ve seen some great teamwork with Network Rail and our teams to minimise the effects of the disruption on our customers.

“We would like to thank our customers for their patience during the improvement works and we now look forward to reaping the benefits from this work in the future.”

The work in Wales began at 9pm on Easter Saturday to allow spectators and competitors in the World Half Marathon event in Cardiff to travel home.

ENDS

 

Notes to editors

 

The Railway Upgrade Plan is Network Rail’s £40bn spending plan for Britain’s railways for the five year period up to 31 March 2019. The plan is designed to provide more capacity, relieve crowding and respond to tremendous growth the railways have seen – a doubling of passengers in the past twenty years. The plan will deliver a bigger, better railway with more trains, longer trains, faster trains with more infrastructure, more reliable infrastructure and better facilities for passengers, especially at stations.