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Friday 8 Jun 2018

Abergele track upgrade completed as part of £50m project to improve reliability for North Wales passengers

Region & Route:

Wales & Western: Wales & Borders

| Wales & Western

Network Rail engineers have completed track upgrade work in Abergele as part of the £50m North Wales railway upgrade project, providing a more reliable service for passengers.

Kevin Roberts, senior project manager for Network Rail Wales and Borders, said: “We’re pleased to have completed the upgrade work at Abergele on schedule, improving the reliability and resilience of the railway for passengers in North Wales.

“We worked closely with our partners Arriva Trains Wales throughout the project, doing all we can to keep disruption and noise to a minimum. I would like to thank residents and passengers for their patience while we completed this essential work.”

The work, all part of Network Rail’s Railway Upgrade Plan, involved laying 600 metres  of new track, as well as work to upgrade two sets of points, which are movable sections of track to allow trains to move from one line to another. Preparation work began in March, with the core element of the work starting at the beginning of April in Abergele. Track work has also been completed at Holywell, Talacre, Rockcliffe Hall and Llandudno.

The £50m project has already seen a state of the art signalling system installed between Shotton and Colwyn Bay, over 6km of new track installed in Mostyn, as well as track upgrade work completed in Rhyl and Flint. Abergele and Pensarn station has also undergone enhancement work, and Tyn y Morfa level crossing has been upgraded to a manually controlled barrier with CCTV.

Bethan Jelfs, customer services director for Arriva Trains Wales, said: “We are very pleased at the completion of this upgrade work which is a significant investment in the rail network in North Wales.

“Working closely with our partners in Network Rail and the local community we have done all we could to reduce the impact this work has had on services and we thank customers for their patience.”

Work will continue over the coming months along the North Wales coast to remove old signalling equipment, such as redundant cables, as part of the North Wales railway upgrade project.