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Monday 30 May 2016

Railway through Oxenholme reopens following spring bank holiday work

Region & Route:

| North West & Central

Passengers travelling through Oxenholme in Cumbria will have a smoother, more reliable journey following a weekend of upgrade work by Network Rail's orange army.

Engineers worked day and night on the West Coast main line at Oxenholme, where it meets the Windermere branch line, over the spring bank holiday to replace life expired track and simplify the track layout to pave the way for more reliable services.

The railway reopened today (Monday 30 May) with trains once again travelling through the area from midday.

Martin Frobisher, route managing director at Network Rail, said: “A large amount of work has taken place over the bank holiday weekend to replace life expired track to improve the track layout in the area, making it easier to maintain and services more reliable for passengers.

“I’d like to thank passengers for their patience while we carried out this investment as part of the Railway Upgrade Plan to deliver a better railway.”

Alex Hynes, managing director for Northern Rail, said: “Investing in local improvements which provide network wide benefits for our customers is great news. It helps contribute to a real improvement in performance and reliability for our customers on this line of route. I’d like to thank those customers for their patience and understanding while this important maintenance work was carried out.”

Michelle Ragozzino, Virgin Trains station manager at Oxenholme, said: “We would like to thank customers for their patience and understanding, whilst Network Rail carried out this important work over the bank holiday weekend. More improvement work is scheduled, alongside the ongoing work at Oxenholme, so we advise passengers to check their journey before they travel and leave plenty of time to arrive at the station, as parking will be extremely limited. We are working closely with Network Rail to ensure alternative travel arrangements and parking spaces are in place to keep disruption to a minimum.”

Over 9,000 members of Network Rail’s orange army worked across the country over the spring bank holiday weekend to deliver vital elements of the company’s Railway Upgrade Plan, which will provide a bigger, better, and more reliable railway for passengers and businesses across Britain.

A total of £30m was invested over three days to renew track, upgrade signalling systems and help boost the capacity of the network so more trains can run in future. The work was planned to minimise disruption, as passenger numbers typically drop by more than half during a bank holiday. The overwhelming majority of journeys were unaffected by engineering work.

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.