Media centre

Thursday 7 Apr 2016

Passengers travelling between Rochdale and Manchester Victoria move closer to a better railway

Region & Route:

| North West & Central

Passengers are being urged to check before they travel over the next five weekends as Network Rail installs new track between Manchester Victoria and Rochdale .

This is as part of work to bring Rochdale station’s new platform into use and reduce journey times in the area.

As well as 1,200m of new track being installed, existing track is being remodelled between Manchester Victoria and Rochdale to link the new platform to the rail network as part of Network Rail’s £1bn+ Northern Programme investment in the north of England.

Since January, Network Rail’s orange army has been working through the night when trains are not running and taking advantage of the weekly Sunday closures of Manchester Victoria to build the brand new platform at Rochdale station. The 135m-long platform will allow trains to turn back at Rochdale from Manchester Victoria, enabling more services between the two. This will mean fewer trains are stationed in Manchester Victoria, releasing capacity to help deliver greater benefits across the railway and keeping more passengers moving.

The platform will also allow faster services to pass through the station, improving journey time along the Calder Valley line which runs between Manchester and Leeds via Bradford.

Terry Strickland, area director at Network Rail said: “The introduction of the new platform at Rochdale station will help contribute to reduced journey times through the area and free up much needed capacity at Manchester Victoria, both of which help provide passengers with a better rail service in the region.

“We are investing more than £1bn to deliver a faster, more reliable and better connected railway to millions of passengers across the north of England. To deliver these long-term benefits, there has to be some short-term disruption. We are working closely with the train operators and doing all we can to keep the inconvenience to a minimum.     

“We will be working day and night over the next five weekends to deliver these improvements and we’d like to thank passengers in advance for their patience.”

Northern will be running replacement bus services between Manchester Victoria and Littleborough stations over the next five weekends.

A Northern spokesperson comments:

“Our main priority is to keep our customers on the move during this disruption. The improvements at Rochdale will give significant benefits to those using the station as well as throughout the region.”

Further strengthening work on the main bridge into Rochdale station will be carried out over the summer to bring the new track and bay platform into use in autumn 2016.

For travel information, passengers should visit www.nationalrail.co.uk