Footage released from £1.1m tunnel track upgrade near Buxton

Monday 28 Sep 2026

Footage released from £1.1m tunnel track upgrade near Buxton

Region & Route:: North West & Central; | North West & Central: North West

Videos have been released of a major project in Derbyshire to upgrade lines inside a 400-metre-long Victorian railway tunnel.

Today (Monday 28 September), the Buxton line reopened to passengers after a weekend rail closure between New Mills Newtown and Buxton.

During the closure, Network Rail and its contractor Central Rail Systems Alliance carried out £1.1m of upgrades:

Replaced over 1,200m of ageing track
Installed 975 new concrete sleepers
Laid over 2,200 tonnes of new railway foundation stone (ballast)

This means smoother and more reliable journeys for passengers travelling on this important commuter and tourist route into the Peak District.

Andrew Mulholland, programme manager for Network Rail, said: “I’d like to thank our passengers for their patience while we carried out these important railway upgrades to improve future journeys on the Buxton line.

“This upgrade will mean smoother, more reliable journeys for our passengers when they’re travelling through this picturesque part of the Peak District.”

For more information on how Network Rail maintains and upgrades the railway, you can visit networkrail.co.uk/our-work/looking-after-the-railway/planned-works.

Passengers are reminded to check how routine railway upgrades might affect their future journeys by visiting nationalrail.co.uk.

Contact information

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

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
North West and Central Media Relations
Press Office
Network Rail
NWCmediarelations@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.