REMINDER: Passengers should plan ahead this Easter as Network Rail invests £83m to improve train services for passengers: Engineers carrying out major rail upgrades

Monday 11 Apr 2022

REMINDER: Passengers should plan ahead this Easter as Network Rail invests £83m to improve train services for passengers

Region & Route:
National
  • Network Rail carrying out 530 upgrade projects worth £83m to upgrade railway for passengers over the Easter bank holiday weekend
  • Majority of network will be open for business as usual, but some routes will be affected by the works taking place, so passengers are asked to check before they travel
  • Passengers asked to wear a face covering if they can as a courtesy to others

Network Rail is reminding passengers to check before they travel this Easter as it prepares to invest £83m on 530 projects to upgrade the railway.

While the majority of the network – over 95% – will be unaffected by the engineering works taking place, there will be disruption on some routes, so passengers are urged to plan ahead.

The railway is vital to Britain’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and passengers can play a key role in boosting that recovery as they return to the network for both work and leisure.

Andrew Haines, Network Rail chief executive, said: “The majority of the railway will be open as usual this Easter for people to take a short break or visit loved ones, but some routes will be affected by our upgrade works, so we’re asking passengers to plan ahead and check their journeys in advance.

“We’ll be carrying out hundreds of vital projects that will improve passengers’ journeys in future – for example by improving reliability and boosting capacity on the network.”

The major upgrade projects to be carried out over the Easter bank holiday weekend include:

  • Resignalling and switches and crossings works at Clapham Junction to improve safety. This will mean no Southern trains will operate to/from London Victoria between 15-18 April, and a reduced SWR service will run to/from Vauxhall.
  • Plain line track renewals, switches and crossings and HS2 works at London Euston and Watford North Junction, to improve capacity and provide a safer railway for passengers. As a result, no trains will operate between London Euston and Milton Keynes Central over the Easter weekend.
  • Bridge renewal works at Coventry South Junction and HS2 enabling works at Hampton-in-Arden to improve reliability and future capacity. Services between Coventry and Birmingham will be diverted via Solihull, while there will be bus replacement services between Rugby and Birmingham International, and between Leamington Spa and Nuneaton/Coventry.
  • Switches and crossing renewals at Bishops Stortford and station upgrade works at Hertford East to improve performance and station capacity. Bus replacement services will operate between Waltham Cross and Stansted Airport, and between Waltham Cross and Hertford East.
  • Station enhancement works at Gatwick Airport to improve capacity. Some trains will not stop at Gatwick, with one train per hour running between Redhill and Gatwick Airport.
  • Track upgrade work in the Llanhilleth area to improve passenger journeys and boost capacity, as part of the multi-million-pound upgrade of the Ebbw Vale Line. As a result, rail replacement services will run between Cardiff Central and Ebbw Vale Town.

Passengers can find out how their Easter journeys will be affected with their train operator, via National Rail Enquiries, or by following #EasterRailWorks on Twitter.

Contact information

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

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Jack Harvey
Jack.Harvey2@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.

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