Wednesday 7 Apr 2004
£5M TRACK AND SEWER PROJECT DELIVERS NORTH LONDON LINE IMPROVEMENTS
- Region & Route:
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North West & Central
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Southern
Network Rail is embarking on a challenge which will deliver improvements to the North London Line and the thousands of passengers who use it everyday.
Freight and passenger trains on the stretch of track at Dalston Kingsland in North London can only run at 30 mph due to an old Victorian sewer and the impact it is having on the track above.
Six feet under the track, the 150 year-old sewer has collapsed. We have installed a temporary pump, which diverts the sewer around the blockage, but in order for the speed restriction to be lifted and trains to run faster, the sewer needs to be totally replaced.
Network Rail has employed specialist contractors to remove the old sewer and install new track foundations and drainage. A new sewer will then be built following a new course and avoiding the railway.
Once the sewer work is complete we can get on with our speciality: renewing the track. 2,300 yards of old jointed track will be replaced with continuous welded rail, 9,126 tonnes of new ballast and 3,450 new sleepers will be used. These improvements will deliver a smoother, quieter and more reliable journey for passengers.
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The extensive work will take four weekends to complete. We will start work on Good Friday (9 April) and complete the work on bank holiday Monday (3 May). Each weekend we will be working around-the-clock and the railway will be closed giving us uninterrupted access to the track.
Jon Wiseman, Network Rail General Manager said: “This £5m project is one of the most complex pieces of work we have undertaken on the North London Line in recent years. The work will however enable passenger and freight services to travel faster and the track will be more reliable and deliver a better journey.”
To ensure that passengers are still able to utilise the North London Line, Silverlink will provide a number of replacement services which include alternative arrangements over the Easter weekend and the May bank holiday weekend.
For further information about passenger services during the work, contact National Rail Enquiries on 08457 48 49 50 or consult Silverlink’s website
www.silverlink-trains.com.
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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