Media centre

Monday 3 Sep 2018

London Euston reopens after North Wembley junction is completely replaced

Region & Route:

| North West & Central

London Euston station reopened today (Monday 3 September) after the final stage of work to replace North Wembley junction was completed on time.

As part of the Railway Upgrade Plan, Network Rail engineers worked more than 20,000 hours over three weekends to replace North Wembley junction.

The £7.2m project, planned for three years, included the complete replacement of four railway lines and points operating equipment.

The UK’s largest Kirow crane with a 125-tonne capacity, along with 15 engineering trains and several tamping trains were used to replace the junction on Europe’s busiest mixed-use section of railway. Passengers and freight users should now benefit from better, more reliable journeys.

The West Coast main line fully reopened this morning on time, as planned, with services running to a normal timetable.

Martin Frobisher, route managing director for Network Rail said: "I would like to thank passengers for their understanding while we carry out this vital work. There was never an ideal time to shut the railway, but the three summer weekends were the least disruptive times to do it as there were typically fewer passengers travelling.

“We worked together for the past three years with train operators to carefully plan this closure of the railway in a way that minimised the impact on customers.

“It was vital the track at North Wembley was replaced to continue to safely meet the huge demand of passenger and freight rail services on the West Coast main line.”

Peter Broadley, executive director for customer, operations and safety Virgin Trains said: “It’s going to be great to have Euston back up and running this weekend. We will be running our normal service and the good news is our customers can still take advantage of the relaxation of the lifting of the Friday PM peak restrictions out of London if they want to get away earlier.”

Andrew Conroy, customer experience director for London Northwestern Railway said: “We put a lot of work into making sure that people who had to travel over the past three weekends could keep moving. While we would all have preferred to be running a full train service, our customers responded well and we should also thank those who heeded the message to travel on alternative days.”

For more information on Network Rail’s Railway Upgrade Plan visit: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/our-railway-upgrade-plan/