Lifts to be made more reliable for passengers at Birmingham International station: Pendolino - Birmingham International - Credit Avanti West Coast

Friday 21 Aug 2020

Lifts to be made more reliable for passengers at Birmingham International station

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

Passengers are being advised about maintenance work on lifts at Birmingham International station which starts next week.

Lifts across all five platforms will have parts replaced, starting on Monday 24 August. The work will take place until November 2020.

The essential maintenance, part of Britain’s Railway Upgrade Plan, will improve reliability for passengers for years to come.

Work will start on platforms 4 and 5 first, followed by the lifts on 3 and 2 and finally on platform 1.

Additional staff will be on hand to help passengers with heavy luggage while the lifts are out of action. Passengers needing wheelchair assistance are urged to book in advance.  

Tom Wadsworth, senior asset engineer from Network Rail, said: “Replacing essential parts of the lifts at Birmingham International station will help keep them safe and operational for many years. We understand the lift upgrade may cause some inconvenience, but we are working closely with station operator, Avanti West Coast, to minimise this as much as possible. I thank passengers for their patience while we make these vital improvements.”

Rebecca Stone, Avanti West Coast station manager at Birmingham International, said: “There is an opportunity to carry out necessary work with fewer people travelling. Our team will be on hand to help those customers in need of extra help.”

You can book assisted travel by calling Avanti West Coast’s assisted travel team on 08000 158 123 or by visiting www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/onboard/assisted-travel.

Passengers are being advised to allow extra time for their journeys and to plan ahead on the National Rail Enquiries journey planner at www.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
Network Rail press office - North West & Central Region
07740 782954
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.

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