Wednesday 18 Feb 2009
£11.5 MILLION BOOST FOR MIDLANDS’ COMMUTERS
- Region & Route:
A £11.5m project is set to benefit thousands of Midlands’ passengers by improving train punctuality and reducing delays to the hundreds of trains that pass through the Kettering area on a daily basis.
Almost seven kilometres of new track is to be laid between Kettering and Harrowden on the Midland Main Line thereby boosting capacity and enabling trains to pass through the area more quickly than before.
This bottleneck on the route is increasingly becoming a problem as more trains are using the route and freight traffic is increasing, especially quarry traffic taking vital aggregates to East London for the Olympics 2012.
Dyan Crowther, route director, said: “Projects like this are vital to increase capacity and improve the service we are able to offer to passengers and freight users. More and more people are wanting to use our railways and continued targeted investment will contribute to the railway’s ongoing success.”
The project is due for completion late spring.
Notes to editors
The new track reinstates one of the line’s removed by BR in the 80s, increasing a two track railway at this point to three The work will include: • Laying 6,700 metres of track • In excess of 11,000 concrete sleepers will be used • New signalling and enhanced power supplies. • The refurbishment and strengthening of 4 Under-bridges. • Trains will be able to travel in both directions on the track
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