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Wednesday 1 Apr 2015

Passengers advised of railway upgrade work in and around Manchester over Easter

Region & Route:

Network Rail will be continuing its investment and upgrade of the railway in the north west over Easter – which will mean changes to train services in the city and surrounding area.

Manchester Victoria station will be closed from 0001 Friday 3 April to 0500 Tuesday 7 April while work takes place to transfer the signalling controls from the Manchester North Signalling Control Centre near Salford Crescent station to the new route operating centre at Ashburys. 

The relocation is part of a national programme of changes to the way the railway is operated to provide a more efficient, reliable and effective railway for passengers. Centralising signalling from around 800 locations across the network to 12 centres over the next 25 to 30 years will improve reliability and improve the efficiency of the railway, saving Network Rail millions of pounds in operating costs.

While Manchester Victoria is closed work will also be taking place between Manchester and Bolton, via Farnworth, as part of the £1bn+ investment in the north of England to provide a more reliable and efficient railway.

The work will take place from 0030 Friday 3 April to 0600 Tuesday 7 April and will involve strengthening one of the Farnworth Tunnels in preparation for work to electrify the line.

This will allow for improvements to be made as part of the wider Farnworth Tunnel project which will allow for electric trains to run through the area from December 2016.

Ian Joslin, area director for Network Rail, said: “Both of these sets of work are part of our ongoing investment to provide a more reliable and efficient railway in the north west of England.

“The work on the line to in the Farnworth area is part of the wider improvements to provide electric trains on the route from December 2016 and similar work has taken place over recent weekends since March. We are utilising the bank holiday weekend to complete even more work ahead of the full line closure which takes place between 2 May and 4 October 2015.

“Relocating the signalling controls is an important step in the modernisation of the railway in and around Greater Manchester and is part of a national strategy to make the railway more reliable and efficient.

“I apologise for any inconvenience this essential work may cause but the result will be a better railway for passengers from across the north west.”

Alex Hynes, managing director for Northern Rail, said: “I’d like to remind our customers to check National Rail Enquiries carefully before they make their journey over Easter. We’ve had to make changes to our services in and out of Manchester to allow Network Rail to make important progress on crucial engineering work. Work which in the long run will enable us to improve services by creating a bigger, better and electric railway with more space as today’s industry evolves to manage ever increasing demand.”

A First Transpennine Express spokesperson said: “There is a significant amount of rail improvement work taking place over Easter that will affect journeys in and out of Manchester.

"We have provided detailed information about services on at network at stations and online and we are asking all customers to check the details of their journeys.

"On some services trains will be replaced by coaches and journey times extended. We appreciate this is not ideal but the improvement works will form part of future enhancements and provide a more reliable railway."

Work will also be taking place on the West Coast main line near Watford affecting journeys from the Manchester area in and out of London. There will be no direct services between London Euston and Hemel Hempstead from Good Friday (3 April) and Easter Monday (6 April) while Network Rail installs the latest upgrades in the Watford area.

The closure is necessary to allow Network Rail to demolish and install a new bridge south of Watford Junction Station, install overhead power equipment and track and do vital repairs to one of the Watford Tunnels which are north of the station.

This will build on work in 2014 and over Christmas and the New Year when new track was installed and new signalling was brought into use. The combined work will help to provide a more reliable and efficient West Coast main line which is one of the busiest mixed use railways in Europe.

For the latest information ahead of travelling over Easter visit www.nationalrail.co.uk/easter.