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Thursday 26 May 2005

PASSENGERS’ PATIENCE PAYS OFF £12M INVESTMENT SET TO DELIVER IMPROVED TRAIN SERVICE

Region & Route:

| Southern

A £12 million project to install over nine miles of railway track on the busy Great Eastern main line reached substantial completion this weekend, improving the reliability of the route and also train performance for passengers travelling to and from London Liverpool Street. Jon Wiseman, Network Rail Route Director, said: “The completion of this vast project is just part of our commitment to rebuilding the region’s railway and to improving train performance for passengers.  This route is heavily used by commuters, business and leisure travellers, who will now benefit from the improved reliability of this stretch of track for years to come.” The massive task to replace life-expired railway track between Shenfield and Chelmsford has seen enough new track installed to go up Ben Nevis and back five times.  It follows last year’s major work to renew twelve miles of track on the same line between Ipswich and Manningtree (during the Ipswich tunnel closure) and makes the railway line through Essex and Suffolk one of the newest in the country. Work started in September 2004 and has been carried out every weekend since, as well as some weeknights.  The project is both on time and to budget with more than 5,000 man hours so far dedicated to relaying 15km of track, 5,500 sleepers and 60,000 tonnes of ballast.  Jon Wiseman continued: “The use of the latest technology has allowed us to send in our team every weekend and achieve results that would previously have only been possible during a major line closure.  Our new high-output track laying machine has enabled us to relay between 300 and 600 metres of track each and every weekend, while keeping any disruption to passengers to an absolute minimum.” The majority of the work was carried out over 27 hour periods at weekends, in order to minimise disruption to peak time travellers.  Passengers travelling on Sundays were provided with replacement bus services by train operator ‘one’. Andrew Goodrum, 'one' Business Director, said: "We're delighted that Network Rail has completed this major programme of track renewal on our busy Mainline route.  Investment in new infrastructure delivers significant benefits for our passengers through improved reliability and performance enhancements.  We would like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding while the work has taken place and we're pleased to add that passengers can now plan their Sunday journeys on the Norwich - London mainline over the summer and autumn period without any planned disruption." Some minor work is required to finally complete the project over the next couple of weeks, but this has been scheduled to take place overnight to avoid any disruption to passengers.