Media centre

Monday 30 Oct 2023

Aylesbury rail route reopens for passengers and freight after HS2 work

Region & Route:

North West & Central

| North West & Central: Central

Rail passengers and local people in Buckinghamshire are being thanked for their patience during a ten-week project to move a section of railway between Aylesbury and Princes Risborough to make way for Britain’s new high-speed line, HS2.

The work involved replacing almost 2km of track across a brand-new embankment built by HS2’s contractor, EKFB (a team made up of Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and Bam Nuttall).

Time-lapse video footage released by Network Rail shows the scale of work completed with the installation of:

• 2,953 concrete sleepers
• 2,000 metres of rail
• 11,000 tonnes of railway ballast (stone).

The railway between Aylesbury and Princes Risborough reopened to passengers and freight trains this morning (Monday 30 October).

The new section of track will provide smoother and more reliable journeys for Chiltern Railways' passengers as well as allowing HS2 to construct new high speed lines which will pass beneath a new 100m steel bridge carrying the existing railway.

To the north of the new high speed route HS2 has installed a further bridge structure which will allow the proposed South West Aylesbury Link Road to also pass beneath the route between Aylesbury and Princes Risborough.

To reduce the impact of the major construction work on the local environment, most of the materials needed were delivered to site by rail, including the new railway ballast (stone) which has helped to remove over 800 lorry movements from the local and national road network.

Patrick Cawley, director for ‘On Network Works’ for Network Rail and HS2, said: “I’d like to say a huge thanks to passengers and local people for their patience while we carried out our major improvements in Aylesbury which will pave the way for HS2, Britain’s new high-speed railway.

“As part of the project we’ve upgraded almost 2km of track in the area which will mean locally that our passengers and freight customers will also benefit from smoother and more reliable journeys.”

To help keep passengers moving during the railway closure, Chiltern Railways operated a bus replacement service between Aylesbury, Little Kimble, Monks Risborough and Princes Risborough stations.

Tony Baxter, operations director at Chiltern Railways, said: "We'd like to offer our sincere thanks to our customers, whose patience and understanding during this ten-week line closure has enabled these vital HS2 works to take place. 

"We're looking forward to welcoming customers back to our route between Princes Risborough and Aylesbury, and staff will be on site delivering cakes and vouchers for respective station cafes on Tuesday 31 October as a small gesture of our gratitude. 

"We know that this has been a long period of disruption, and are pleased to be sending the rail replacement buses back to the garage and resuming our train services along the line.” 

Staff from Network Rail and Chiltern Railways will be at Aylesbury and Princes Risborough stations between 3pm and 6pm on Tuesday 31 October giving out locally supplied cakes to thank passengers for their patience during the improvement work.

Marsh Lane level crossing - which was closed to enable the track realignment work - will remain shut to road users until 2024 while a project to upgrade the level crossing and bring it up to modern safety standards takes place. Network Rail will keep local people informed about this work.

More information about the railway improvement work in Aylesbury can be found at www.networkrail.co.uk/pra