Media centre

Tuesday 17 Dec 2002

NETWORK RAIL’S COMMITMENT TO TRACK IMPROVEMENTS IN NEWPORT

Region & Route:

| Wales & Western: Wales & Borders

| Wales & Western

A major track renewal project will take place in Newport over the festive season on one of the busiest sections of railway in south Wales. As part of Network Rail’s ongoing programme to upgrade and enhance the country’s rail network, the nine-day engineering work will take place west of Newport station, starting at 1800 on Christmas Eve, Tuesday 24th and will continue through until 0600 2nd January 2003. The project will involve relaying two major rail crossovers and associated signalling work, which means services through Newport will be restricted with train timetables affected. Between Friday 27th and Sunday 29th December the section of track will be severely restricted, as will platform 1 and 2 in the station and so, to ease the congestion at Newport station, the rarely used platform 4 will be reopened for the weekend.  Trains will either be cancelled or terminate in Newport to be replaced by road transport and passengers can ring National Rail Enquiries on 08457 48 49 50 for details of these revised services.                                                                                                             Newport -2 Network Rail Great Western Zone Director, John Curley, said:   “This engineering work is an important part of our commitment to providing a safe and reliable rail network.  It will deliver real improvements to our infrastructure in south-east Wales. “We would, however, like to apologise for the disruption to passengers that the work will cause and we will do our utmost to ensure that it is kept to a minimum.  The train operators have also done all they can to make customers’ journeys easier, arranging coaches, offering extra staff assistance and providing full information about the amended timetable.”