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Tuesday 3 May 2016

Engineers deliver £2m West Coast Main Line enhancement works on-time for passengers

Region & Route:

Scotland’s Railway: Scotland

Commuters returned to work today on a better, more reliable railway after Network Rail engineers completed vital improvement works on the West Coast Main Line over the bank holiday weekend.

Across Britain, over 11,000 engineers delivered another phase of Network Rail’s Railway Upgrade Plan, which will provide a bigger, better, and more reliable railway for passengers and businesses.

In Scotland,  hundreds of staff worked through the weekend to complete over £2m of improvements on the main line between Glasgow and London, renewing and refurbishing key junctions in Glasgow and Lanarkshire on the busy cross-border route.

A total of £33m was spent on the railway over the May Day weekend, with the work planned over the long weekend when passenger numbers are typically fewer than half, minimising disruption to passengers as far as possible. 

Mark Carne, Network Rail chief executive, said: "I would like to thank passengers for their understanding while we worked to improve the railway over the long weekend, part of the £40bn we are spending to keep passengers and freight moving. I am proud of the efforts of our engineers who worked tirelessly to deliver another slice of our Railway Upgrade Plan aimed at providing better, more reliable journeys for passengers and businesses across Britain.”