‘BUSINESS AS USUAL’ FOR CITY RAIL COMMUTERS THIS XMAS

Wednesday 3 Dec 2008

‘BUSINESS AS USUAL’ FOR CITY RAIL COMMUTERS THIS XMAS

Region & Route:: | Southern

Rail commuters returning to work after the long Christmas weekend can look forward to business as usual at Liverpool Street station this year thanks to a less intensive programme of railway improvement work.

Network Rail is planning to have full services running on all routes in and out of Liverpool Street on Monday 29 December following completion of important work on overhead power lines in the Bethnal Green and Bow area.

The work – part of a £150m project to renew life-expired overhead lines between Liverpool Street, Chelmsford and Southend Victoria – will increase reliability and performance and lays the groundwork for further improvement work over the next two years in preparation for the 2012 Olympics.

The work is targeted at one of the quietest times of year for rail travel when demand is at a low level compared to normal, enabling the company to carry a programme of improvement work to build a bigger better railway with minimal disruption to rail users.

Patrick Hallgate, Network Rail route director for Anglia, said: “Liverpool Street station is one of the busiest in the country and is a vital transport hub for hundreds of thousands of commuters working in the City and beyond.

“The improvement work being carried out over the Christmas period is part of a £150m upgrade which Network Rail is investing to deliver a better, more reliable railway for passengers on this route. Passengers will be pleased to hear that our activity this year is significantly down on previous years and is concentrated on just one weekend to minimise disruption to rail users.”

David Lewis, Sales & Marketing Director for National Express East Anglia, said: “The Christmas and New Year train service schedules provide excellent opportunities for customers to plan shopping and leisure days out, or to see friends and family in London and the East Anglia region over the festive season.

“The planned improvement work is a lot less disruptive than in previous years providing greater opportunities for those wishing to travel over the festive period. Our sales and travel advisors will be happy to help and advise on the best travel deals over the holiday period.”

No services will operate from Liverpool Street station on Thursday 25 and Friday 26 December 2008 except for the Stansted Express service.
On Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 December all services on the Great Eastern Mainline will start from, and terminate at, Ilford. A special coach replacement services for intercity customers will operate between Ingatestone and London Liverpool Street with a local rail replacement bus service between Ilford and Newbury Park.

Passengers are advised to check their Christmas travel arrangements with www.nationalrail.co.uk or by calling National Rail Enquiries on 08457 48 49 50.

Notes to editors

Learning lessons from last year’s over-run, Network Rail has almost completely re-written the rule book when carrying out major pieces of work, involving more detailed and earlier planning, more checking of resources and manpower and military style command posts set up to control and oversee the work In addition to the overhead line upgrades, the temporary line closures will also allow engineers to carry out work on a number of other projects including: - New replacement facilities for the Stratford termination of the North London Line - Conversion of existing North London Line platforms for use by the new Stratford to North Woolwich DLR line - Enabling work for the new East London Line

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - South East route
020 3357 7969
southeastroutecomms@networkrail.co.uk

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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