Major rail upgrades completed at Colchester to make main line services more reliable

Tuesday 4 Sep 2018

Major rail upgrades completed at Colchester to make main line services more reliable

Region & Route:: Eastern: Anglia; | Eastern

Major upgrades have been carried out at Colchester to make the busy Norwich to London main line more reliable and resilient.

Over the weekend, Network Rail engineers carried out the following work at Colchester as part of the company’s Railway Upgrade Plan:

Replaced one set of points which allow trains to move from one track to another
Replaced over 160 metres of track
Replaced 1500tns of ballast, the stones that make up the track bed for drainage and to keep vegetation at bay
Installed one new buffer stop

The work is essential to prevent track issues and to keep passenger services moving on the busy Norwich to London rail line, which is used by thousands of passengers each day.

Meliha Duymaz, Network Rail’s route managing director for Anglia, said: “Hundreds of trains use the main line every day and that’s why work like this is essential to keep the network in good condition, so we can run a reliable service. We have carried out a huge package of work at Colchester to increase the resilience of the rail network. I’d like to thank passengers for their patience while we carried out this important work.”

Greater Anglia managing director Jamie Burles said: “We are very grateful to customers for their patience and understanding while this work was carried out. Thousands of people use this line every day and this work was essential to improve the railway in East Anglia, making it more reliable for generations to come.”

Further closures will take place between Colchester and Ingatestone to renew the track. During weekends in September and October, buses will regularly replace trains between Ingatestone and Marks Tey, Colchester or Ipswich, and between Witham and Braintree (though a normal service will operate on Saturday 29 September, Saturdays 6, 21, 27 October and Sunday 22 October).

Passengers can check how their journeys will be affected at www.nationalrail.co.uk or www.greateranglia.co.uk

Notes to Editors

Further upgrades will take place throughout the Autumn to help further improve train service performance. These works will affect services on 8 Saturdays and 11 Sundays on both the Great Eastern Main Line and the Witham to Braintree line. Details of the dates affected are as follows:

Saturdays - 8, 15, 22 September, 13 October, 3, 17, 24 November

Sundays - 9, 16, 23, 30 September 7, 14, 28 October, 4, 18, 25 November

Most dates will affect all customers on the Great Eastern Main Line travelling to/from stations north of Ingatestone. However, the works on 13, 14 and 28 October only affect customers travelling to/from stations north of Ipswich.

Full details of the locations affected on each of the dates are as follows :

	Main line	Braintree branch line
Saturday 8 September	Marks Tey to Ingatestone	Rail replacement Braintree to Witham
Sunday 9 September	Colchester to Ingatestone	Rail replacement Braintree to Witham
Saturday 15 September	Marks Tey to Ingatestone	Rail replacement Braintree to Witham
Sunday 16 September	Colchester to Ingatestone	Rail replacement Braintree to Witham
Saturday 22 September	Marks Tey to Ingatestone	Rail replacement Braintree to Witham
Sunday 23 September	Colchester to Ingatestone	Rail replacement Braintree to Witham
Saturday 29 September
Sunday 30 September	Colchester to Ingatestone	Rail replacement Braintree to Witham
Saturday 6 October
Sunday 7 October	Ipswich to Ingatestone	Rail replacement Braintree to Witham
Saturday 13 October	Norwich to Ipswich
Sunday 14 October	Norwich to Ipswich
Saturday 21 October
Sunday 22 October
Saturday 27 October
Sunday 28 October	Norwich to Ipswich
Saturday 3 November	Ingatestone to London Liverpool Street
Sunday 4 November	Colchester to London Liverpool Street	Rail replacement Braintree to Witham
Saturday 17 November	Ingatestone to London Liverpool Street
Sunday 18 November	Ingatestone to London Liverpool Street
Saturday 24 November	Ingatestone to London Liverpool Street
Sunday 25 November	Ingatestone to London Liverpool Street

There are no planned service alterations on Saturdays 29 September, 6, 20, 27 October, 11 November or Sundays 21 October and 11 November.

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 - Katie Mack
Media relations manager (Anglia route)
0330 8577 132
Katie.Mack@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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