Media centre

Tuesday 20 May 2008

BANK HOLIDAY RAIL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME

Region & Route:

National

Network Rail today advised those planning to travel by rail over the spring bank holiday to double check how its weekend investment programme might affect their journey.

The rail infrastructure operator will be continuing its multi-billion pound programme of improvements, which will create better, faster and more reliable journeys for passengers across the country. Although over 80% of train lines will be open and unaffected by the improvement work, Network Rail will have over 4,000 people delivering 150,000 hours and around £45m worth of improvements over the three days.

The biggest projects include:

• Further work to upgrade the West Coast mainline, enabling millions more people to use the railway each year and leading to a journey time reduction of 56 minutes from London to Glasgow
• Platform extensions at Luton Airport Parkway, helping create better journeys to London as part of the £5.5bn Thameslink Programme
• Track and signalling works at Merthyr and Newport, improving journeys for people across Wales and South West England
• Ongoing infrastructure improvement work at Hull Docks. This will enable 20 extra freight trains to serve Humber Ports daily – taking up to 1,000 lorries off the roads every day

Network Rail Director of Infrastructure Investment, Simon Kirby said: "We know this work can be disruptive and we would like to thank all our passengers for their patience while we carry out this major upgrade programme.

"The majority of services will continue to run over the bank holiday weekend, however, and this work will allow us to offer passengers better, faster and more frequent services across the country in years to come. Please do check before you travel and plan your journey carefully."

Details of the main concentrations of work are available on Network Rail's website www.networkrail.co.uk/may

Network Rail is working closely with train operators, Passenger Focus and other partners in the rail industry to get up to date information to passengers before they travel. Travel information for the bank holiday weekend has been available from National Rail Enquiries for several weeks.

For advice on journeys and ticket information, passengers should contact National Rail Enquiries at: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk or on 08457 48 49 50.