RAILWAY TO REOPEN AFTER UFTON NERVET ACCIDENT

Sunday 14 Nov 2004

RAILWAY TO REOPEN AFTER UFTON NERVET ACCIDENT

Region & Route:: National

The Theale to Newbury railway line will reopen at midday on Tuesday following the Ufton Nervet rail accident last weekend, when a train collided with a car at a level crossing. Hundreds of railway engineers have worked around the clock to recover the site and carry out the extensive track repairs necessary to ensure the line is ready to reopen with a fully renewed infrastructure. In total, 1332m of new rail has been laid using 750 sleepers and over 2280 tons of ballast. Significant signalling repairs have also been completed including the installation of five trackside cubicles and the renewal of 2 kms of trackside cables. Network Rail Chief Executive John Armitt said: "My thoughts remain with the family and friends of those who lost their lives and with those who were injured in this tragic accident. "But I am very proud of the railway employees who have been leading the recovery operation at site. They have completed a great deal of difficult and demanding work, and done so more quickly than had been anticipated. "The completion of this work has been made possible by the support and cooperation of both the local community and the police on the night of the accident and since. I would like to extend my thanks to them."

Contact information

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

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - National
020 3356 8700
mediarelations@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.

Media centre