NORTH EAST RAIL REPAIR COMPLETE: Haltwhistle

Monday 2 Jul 2012

NORTH EAST RAIL REPAIR COMPLETE

Region & Route:

Rail services resumed throughout the north east this morning after engineers rebuilt embankments damaged in Thursday’s storms.

Areas of the track beds were torn away by floods at Haltwhistle on the Newcastle to Carlisle route and Scremerston on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) between Newcastle and Berwick. Both sites required significant rebuild – at Scremerston 600 tonnes of new material had to be replaced.

In order to carry out the work safely no trains ran between Haltwhistle and Carlisle over the weekend. The line reopened at 0600 this morning.

At Scremerston trains ran a reduced service throughout the weekend. The first train ran over the renewed site at reduced speed at 08.30 on Sunday morning.

Warrick Dent, general manager for Network Rail, said: “I would like to thank passengers for their continued patience while we completed these significant works. Our engineers have worked around the clock to restore services as quickly as possible. The fact that we have a full service running this morning is a testament to them.”

Contact information

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