Wednesday 21 Dec 2005
£3.3 MILLION CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR WOLVERCOTE JUNCTION
- Region & Route:
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Wales & Western: Western
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Wales & Western
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Southern
This Christmas, while most people enjoy precious time with their families, up to 90 railway workers will forfeit their roast turkey and mince pies to install a vital new railway ‘crossover’ and new track at Wolvercote Junction, just north of Oxford.
The major improvement project will be carried out between Christmas and New Year, taking advantage of the traditional two-day closure of the railway on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Passengers travelling north of Oxford via Hanborough or Banbury will be affected.
Robbie Burns, Network Rail Route Director, said: “The Christmas period provides a window of opportunity for essential work on the railway, while minimising disruption to passengers. The improvement work at this busy junction will ensure the future reliability of the line by reducing track-related delays, which is good news for rail passengers.”
Network Rail’s investment of £3.3 million at Wolvercote Junction will replace the existing ‘crossover’ - the part of the track that allows a train to cross from one line to another – as well as other essential track components and 440 metres of track. The existing equipment is approximately 40 years old and needs to be replaced.
Robbie Burns continued: “This scheme has been carefully planned during the last two years and advance preparations are already underway on site. Throughout the Christmas period, engineers will work around the clock to complete this major task so that passengers can enjoy a brand new junction and reliable train services in the New Year.”
Work will start late at night on Christmas Eve and continue through to the early hours of New Year’s Day. Trains from the south will terminate at Oxford with replacement buses providing a connection to Hanborough on the Cotswold line and to Banbury on the line to Birmingham.
Passengers should allow extra time to travel and contact individual train operators or National Rail Enquiries for further advice on:
National Rail Enquiries 08457 48 49 50
www.nationalrail.co.uk.
First Great Western Link 08453 307 182
www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/link
Virgin 0870 789 1234
www.virgintrains.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.
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