Tuesday 23 Mar 2004
RAIL WORK CLOSES LINE
- Region & Route:
Network Rail has closed part of the Buxton to Manchester railway line for two days (today 23 March and tomorrow 24 March) while it carries out vital track renewal work in the Chapel-en-le-Frith area. As a result, First North Western train services are replaced by buses between Buxton and New Mills Newtown. Train services will return to normal from first thing on Thursday (25 March).
The £600,000 project involves laying 24 three hundred feet-long pieces of rail on 1,600 steel sleepers set into 2,000 tonnes of ballast (the grey stones that railway track sits on). The pieces of rail will be welded together to give continuous lengths of track that provide a smoother, quieter ride for passengers and cause less wear and tear on train wheels.
At the moment there is a 20 mph temporary speed restriction in force for nearly three miles, which is causing delays not only to the Buxton services but others further afield when they merge with the busy tracks approaching Stockport and Manchester. By carrying out the renewals to just 1,200 yds track, Network Rail will be able to significantly shorten the temporary speed restriction and raise it to 40 mph. This will considerably reduce delays to trains and bring them back within allowances inbuilt into the timetable.
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Buxton – 2
Network Rail was to renew the entire three-mile section of line at a cost of £2m, but not for another four years. Whilst there are no safety implications in leaving it that long, the delays being caused to train services were unacceptable.
Jo Green, Network Rail general manager responsible for track maintenance said: “As we continue to rebuild the railway, we have to make tough decisions on where and when we spend our money. The £2m had been set aside, but not until 2008 because other work was deemed to be of a higher priority.”
Ms Green continued: “However, by renewing the most needy section of track, we can get the trains moving twice as fast as they currently are, and very nearly up to their proper speed of 50 mph. Not only will passengers notice the change in the ride quality of their journeys but they should also experience far fewer delays to their trains.”
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.
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