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Tuesday 22 Jul 2025

Access All Areas: rare Stockport railway closure to improve network near and far

Region & Route:

North West & Central

| North West & Central: North West

This August railway engineers will improve future journeys across three counties during a rare three-week railway closure through Stockport.

Network Rail teams will complete multiple large-scale projects along the West Coast Main Line in Staffordshire, Cheshire and Greater Manchester between 2 and 23 August.

That’s when the highly anticipated £20m demolition and replacement of Greek Street roundabout over the railway south of Stockport station will bring trains through the area to a halt.

With tracks clear of most train traffic along approximately 50 miles of the West Coast Main Line between Staffordshire and Stockport, it provides a perfect opportunity for Network Rail and its contractors to access the railway for dozens of additional railway upgrades.

The largest of these schemes, representing a combined and additional £23m investment, are:

• Strengthening and waterproofing River Trent Viaduct in Stone
• Work to upgrade the power supply to overhead lines in Stockport
• Track renewals in Stone, Hixon and Congleton
• Railway point replacement in Macclesfield
• Platform work at Poynton station
• Railway drainage upgraded at Trentham
• A new footbridge at Longport station

Alongside the main worksites, scores more smaller but equally important maintenance activities will also be taking place, including upgrades to signal boxes and level crossings.

Condensing all this work into those three weeks is more efficient, saving money for the taxpayer overall, with the alternative being years of disruptive weekend or overnight working to deliver the same benefits for passengers and freight.

It’s also been carefully planned during the school summer holidays when typically fewer people travel.

Those who are making journeys will be kept on the move through replacement bus services or trains using diversionary routes.

As these will vary from day to day, anyone planning travel between 2 and 23 August is urged to use www.nationalrail.co.uk to carefully plan their journey.

In particular, there will be no services north of Stoke-on-Trent to Manchester for the duration of the closure.

Christian Irwin OBE, Network Rail’s North West and Central region Capital Delivery director, said: “We know that any railway closure means changes to people’s travel plans, so we’ve worked hard to make sure we carry out as many improvement projects as efficiently and effectively as possible during this rare three-week window when routes in and around Stockport are closed.

“When combined all of these upgrades will greatly improve the future reliability for passenger and freight trains on the West Coast Main Line for years to come. During the significant improvements, we’re advising people to plan ahead and remember to check before they travel by using National Rail Enquiries.”

For more information on the Greek Street project you can visit: www.networkrail.co.uk/greekstreet