Media centre

Tuesday 1 Sep 2015

Railway August Bank Holiday works completed

Region & Route:

National

Network Rail’s 14,000-strong orange army completed a £47m package of investment works as part of its Railway Upgrade Plan over the August bank holiday.

Work included completing the re-signalling of the Stafford area of the West Coast Main Line, which saw 78 signals installed. This upgrade will boost the reliability of the equipment on this section of the line and will mean all platforms at Stafford station will be able to accommodate trains in either direction.  It’s part of a £250m programme to remove a major bottleneck on Europe’s busiest mixed line railway.

In Bath, work continued in preparation for the electrification of the railway. This weekend saw the culmination of six weeks' work where we lowered and replaced 10km of track in the Bath area in preparation for the arrival of a new fleet of faster, quieter and greener electric trains. As part of the £50m project, the team also installed 11 new switches and crossings, enabling trains to move from one track to another.

On the Great Eastern Main Line, which runs from Norwich into London Liverpool Street. engineers installed new track at Ipswich tunnel to improve reliability and overhead lines were upgraded at Brentwood.

The government-sponsored Thameslink Programme continued its work, with tracks outside London Bridge station cut and moved to the north. This will allow for the old track and right-of-way to be dug up and rebuilt in time for Christmas and the next major stage of rebuilding.  New tracks on the line towards Waterloo East were also installed. These will carry trains into the new Borough Market Viaduct from January 2016. Signalling gantries were removed and installed, and signalling equipment, which controls trains and detects where they are, was installed and tested.

Mark Carne, chief executive for Network Rail said: “This was another vital weekend for our orange army as we carried out a huge amount of work to deliver our Railway Upgrade Plan.  With new tracks, signalling and other improvements delivered across the network, passengers will have a more modern and reliable railway. I’d like to thank passengers and our lineside neighbours for their patience and understanding as we delivered this vital work to improve their journeys.”