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Saturday 4 Mar 2017

MP "grateful" to Network Rail's Liverpool Lime Street repair team

Region & Route:

| North West & Central

Louise Ellman MP today thanked orange army engineers working to get train customers moving in and out of Liverpool Lime Street station again on Thursday next week.

The MP for Liverpool Riverside visited the site of the cutting wall collpase, near the city's main railway station, today with Martin Frobisher, Network Rail’s London North Western route MD.

Louise said: "As a local MP I have been really keen to see how the work is progressing on site, and as Chair of the Transport Select Committee I wanted to see how Network Rail are dealing with this major incident.

"I'm really impressed to see how organised this is and how hard people are working, and despite this massive event, within a few days trains should be back running in and out of Lime Street station. People are working very hard and I'm grateful to them."

Martin added: “Our focus is safely repairing and reopening the railway so train customers can be on the move again in and out of Liverpool Lime Street. Our orange army are working around the clock. They’re doing a grand job. We're really proud of them.”

No trains have run in or out of Lime Street since a section of cutting wall collapsed on Tuesday (28 Feb) evening sending 200 tonnes of rubble across the tracks and taking down overhead wires. Work was starting this afternoon on clearing the rubble off the four lines at the bottom of the deep cutting.

Network Rail is working closely with Northern, London Midland, TransPennine Express, Virgin Trains and East Midlands Trains to keep customers, including football and fight fans, on the move.

Train customers are advised to check before they travel at nationalrail.co.uk, and with train operators, for the latest information.

Network Rail’s orange army engineers are working to a three-step plan to reopen Lime Street on Thursday next week. Firstly, they are making safe the location by removing 4,000 tonnes of material from the top of the cutting. They are now beginning step two – clearing the debris from the tracks more than 10 metres below. After that, step three – repairing damage to the railway so trains can run again.