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Tuesday 3 May 2016

May Day rail investment programme delivers better, more reliable railway for passengers in South Yorkshire

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Commuters in South Yorkshire returned to work today on a better, more reliable railway thanks to the efforts of Network Rail’s orange army, who worked round-the-clock to improve the network over the bank holiday weekend.

Across the country over 11,000 engineers worked through the long weekend to deliver another slice of Network Rail’s £40bn Railway Upgrade Plan, which will provide a bigger, better, and more reliable railway for passengers and businesses across Britain.

In Sheffield, engineers worked 24/7 to move control of some of the signalling in South Yorkshire to the state-of-the-art Rail Operating Centre in York, which already controls the signals in large parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, to make services more reliable and bring down the cost of running the railway.

The investment was deliberately timed to take place 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. 

Compared with the recent Easter programme, there was significantly less disruption on major routes with the overwhelming majority of journeys unaffected.

Rob McIntosh, route managing director for Network Rail, said: "I would like to thank passengers for their understanding while we worked to improve the railway over the long weekend. I am proud of the efforts of our engineers who worked tirelessly to deliver another slice of our £40bn Railway Upgrade Plan aimed at providing better, more reliable journeys for passengers and businesses across Britain.”