Passengers travelling through North East urged to check before travelling this weekend as £3.5million rail upgrade begins: Train services resume at Rotherham Central station following severe flooding over the weekend

Monday 18 Feb 2019

Passengers travelling through North East urged to check before travelling this weekend as £3.5million rail upgrade begins

Region & Route:
Eastern

Passengers travelling in the North East are being advised to check before they travel on Sunday 24 February and for the next four weekends as Network Rail carries out work to upgrade signalling and track in the region.

As part of the Great North Rail Project, Network Rail engineers will move control of the signalling from Bowesfield signal box to the rail operating centre in York, upgrade Urlay Nook level crossing and improve track in the area, which will improve reliability and create a more modern railway.

The first phase of the work will take place on Sunday 24 February and Network Rail is advising passengers to plan their journeys and check before they travel via National Rail Enquiries or with their train operator. The work will mean changes to train services as coach replacement services and diversionary routes will be in place.

TransPennine Express services between Manchester Airport/Piccadilly and Middlesbrough will be diverted to run to/from Darlington and buses will replace services between Northallerton and Middlesbrough.

Grand Central services between London and Sunderland will be diverted via Durham which will extend journey times by up to 30 minutes. Rail replacement bus services will run between Eaglescliffe and Hartlepool.

The upgrade to signalling  follows on from the completion of similar schemes in the North which have seen control of signalling from across East and West Yorkshire move from old-fashioned lineside signal boxes to the more modern, state-of-the-art rail operating centre, which brings greater reliability to the railway.

The projects will also impact on services on Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 March, Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 March, Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 March and Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 March.

Rob McIntosh, Network Rail Route Managing Director said: “We apologise to passengers who will be inconvenienced for a total of five weekends whilst we undertake this vital £3.5 million signalling and track enhancement project in the North East. We appreciate there is never a good time to work on the railway and we are working closely with train operating companies to keep disruption to a minimum.

“The Great North Rail project is bringing tangible benefits to customers across the North of England. The work carried out will create a more modern and reliable railway which will allow us to provide a better experience to the passengers and communities we serve. We thank passengers for their patience and look forward to them being able to enjoy an enhanced service going forward."

ENDS

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Joanne Parker
joanne.parker@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

Follow us on Twitter: @networkrail
Visit our online newsroom: www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk