Media centre

Thursday 1 Feb 2018

Railway lines in Norwich, Yarmouth and Lowestoft set for major upgrade

Region & Route:

Eastern: Anglia

| Eastern

The next phase of work to upgrade the signalling system on the Norwich, Yarmouth and Lowestoft railway lines begins on Saturday 10 February as part of a £68million investment.

A total of 66 new colour light LED signals, 22 power operated points and a remote computer-based signalling control system will replace levers and physical operations, providing safer and more reliable journeys for passengers.

As part of the work, four level crossings will be closed temporarily on various days in the run up to and during the work as changes are made to bring them up to modern safety standards, diversions will be in place:

• Brundall level crossing will be closed to vehicles and pedestrians overnight from 6pm Sunday 11 to 6am Monday 12 February
• Strumpshaw level crossing will be closed to vehicles and pedestrians on Sunday 4 February between 8am – 8pm
• Cantley Road will also be closed at nights from 11pm – 4am Saturday 3 March 2018 until Monday 5 March 2018

Level crossings that are currently operated by a crossing keeper will be replaced with a modern barrier type remotely controlled by a signaller using CCTV cameras.

Meliha Duymaz, Network Rail’s route managing director for Anglia, said: “This is a significant project that will not only transform rail travel for passengers in this region, but also bring benefits for motorists and pedestrians. We are working to provide a sustainable and efficient railway which uses modern technology, to improve safety and reliability as part of our Railway Upgrade Plan. I’d like to thank passengers for their patience while we carry out this important work and urge anyone using these services to check how their journeys will be affected ahead of travelling.”

Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia managing director, said: “This is important work to modernise the railway in East Anglia, which will improve reliability. We know our customers would rather travel by train, but during engineering works we will still make sure that customers can complete their journeys, by organising rail replacement buses."

The work will take place at several locations and there will be significant work on the Norwich-Yarmouth-Lowestoft lines between October 2017 and March 2019. This will result in changes to train services and passengers are advised to check before they travel at www.nationalrail.co.uk or www.greateranglia.co.uk. 

For more information about the project go to www.networkrail.co.uk/nyl.