£200M ANGLIA RAIL UPGRADE TO INCREASE RELIABILITY

Tuesday 31 Mar 2009

£200M ANGLIA RAIL UPGRADE TO INCREASE RELIABILITY

Region & Route:: Eastern: Anglia; | Eastern

Essential upgrades being made to the railway in the Stratford area this Easter will increase reliability and improve performance for passengers on the Great Eastern Mainline out of London Liverpool Street.

The work at Maryland and Forest Gate is part of a £200million Network Rail project to renew the life-expired overhead lines between Liverpool Street and Chelmsford and Southend Victoria, much of which was installed in the 1960s. The new system will increase reliability and allow quicker repair times should any problems occur, and lays the groundwork for further renewal work over the next three years in preparation for the 2012 Olympics.

The improvement work is targeted at one of the quietest times of year for rail travel when demand is at a low level compared to normal, enabling Network Rail to carry out a programme of improvement work to build a bigger better railway with minimal disruption to rail users.

Patrick Hallgate, Network Rail route director for Anglia, said: “Rather than patch and mend when problems occur, our policy is to predict and prevent. That’s why Network Rail is investing more than £200m over the next two years to completely renew outdated infrastructure on the Anglia route, an investment which will deliver a better, more reliable railway for passengers.

"This is a significant piece of work, and the Easter weekend provides a suitable window within which it can be completed. Rail demand on this busy commuter route is significantly lower at weekends and on public holidays, so it makes sense to carry out the work at a time that minimises disruption to passengers."

National Express East Anglia will be operating rail replacement bus and coach services from Ingatestone to Liverpool Street and from Romford to Newbury Park.

Network Rail is working closely with train operators, Passenger Focus and other partners in the rail industry to get up to date information to passengers before they travel. Travel information for the Bank Holiday weekend has been available from National Rail Enquiries for several weeks.

Passengers are advised to check their Easter travel arrangements with www.nationalrail.co.uk or by calling National Rail Enquiries on 08457 48 49 50.

Notes to editors

Learning lessons from over-runs in 2007, Network Rail has almost completely re-written the rule book when carrying out major pieces of work, involving more detailed and earlier planning, more checking of resources and manpower and military style command posts set up to control and oversee the work As well as being a busy commuter interchange, Stratford is being transformed into a key hub for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In addition to the overhead line upgrades, the temporary line closures will also allow engineers to complete work at Stratford station to convert the existing low-level North London Line platforms (currently used by London Overground services) for use by the new Stratford International to North Woolwich DLR line. As a result London Overground will move services to new high-level platforms on the north side of the station.

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - South East route
020 3357 7969
southeastroutecomms@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

Media centre