RAILWAY INVESTMENT BRINGS BENEFITS TO WOOLSTON

Thursday 30 Sep 2004

RAILWAY INVESTMENT BRINGS BENEFITS TO WOOLSTON

Region & Route:: | Southern

Over the next two weeks Network Rail is investing £720,000 in renewing 854 yards of track at Woolston. The work will deliver a smoother, quieter and more reliable journey for rail passengers. The work will take place overnight on 30th September/1st October and 7th/8th October. Network Rail employees will work throughout the night to renew the track, ballast and sleepers in time for the railway to be reopened each morning for passenger services. David Pape, Network Rail Route Director, said: “This project highlights our commitment to improving performance and reliability, and delivering a better railway for passengers in the South. We are sure passengers travelling on this crucial South coast route will notice the benefits straight away.” In total, 1250 concrete sleepers, 2800 tonnes of ballast and 51 tonnes of continuous welded rail will be replaced. The materials involved in the track renewal will weigh more than 700 double decker buses – all this will be moved into place over just four nights! As well as laying new track, the team will also clear scrap and debris from the railway. This work is part of the massive £1.72 billion investment programme committed to the Southern region over the next three years.

Contact information

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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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