Media centre

Wednesday 5 Feb 2003

ENGINEERING WORKS MEANS MAJOR INVESTMENT IN CAMBRIAN LINE

Region & Route:

| Wales & Western: Wales & Borders

| Wales & Western

Network Rail has scheduled major engineering and maintenance works on the Cambrian line as part of its ongoing programme to upgrade and enhance the county’s rail network.   The engineering work will take place at various locations over a thirty mile stretch of the Cambrian railway between Pwllheli and Barmouth during all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 18th – 20th February 2003. The comprehensive programme of works will include sleeper replacement, track relaying, re-railing, level crossing improvements and maintenance, sea defence work and vegetation management. The work has been specially scheduled to coincide with the school half-term so as not to disruption hundreds of local children who regularly use the train service to travel to and from school. This work will mean that the railway will be closed from 23.15 Monday evening.  All service to and from Pwllheli will be replaced by road transport between Pwllheli and Barmouth, from where a normal service will operate. The work will be completed by 05.30 on Friday morning. -more- Cambrian Line Engineering – 2 The last train on Monday evening, 17th February, the 21.12 service from Machynlleth to Pwllheli, will terminate at Harlech where onward road transport will be provided. On Friday morning, 21st February, the 06.46 service from Pwllheli to Machynlleth will start from Porthmadog, where road transport will be provided for passengers from Pwllheli to connect with this service. Passengers can ring National Rail Enquiries on 08457 48 49 50 or go to www.walesandborderstrains.co.uk for details of these services. Network Rail Great Western Zone Director, John Curley, said:   “This engineering work is an important part of our commitment to providing a safe and reliable rail network.  It will deliver real improvements to our infrastructure on the Cambrian line. “Although we’ve scheduled this work carefully to minimise disruption, we would like to apologise for the disruption to passengers that this major programme of works will cause and we will do our utmost to ensure that it is kept to a minimum.  Chris Gibb, Managing Director of Wales & Borders Trains said: “We have worked closely with Network Rail to ensure this work causes the least inconvenience to our customers. We will be providing alternative road transport to make journeys as easy as possible. This work will provide clear benefits for services on the line and I would thank our customers for their understanding whilst it is carried out.”