Media centre

Thursday 30 Mar 2006

SETTLE – CARLISLE LINE RE-OPENS

Region & Route:

It’s business as usual from Saturday on the Settle to Carlisle line following the recent closure for track renewal work. During the four-week closure, seven miles of new track was laid resulting in higher line speeds across some sections of the route. Drainage was improved and other preventative maintenance activity completed across over a dozen work sites along 35 miles of railway. The higher speeds will help to improve punctuality for all rail services that use this key rail artery. Network Rail’s route director Peter Strachan said: “We’d like to say a big thank you to passengers and freight customers for their understanding and patience whilst we undertook this vital work.  The four week project has been a big success, the engineering team has done a tremendous job and we now have a better railway as a result.” “But the massive investment in the route over the last four weeks is just part of the story as further work is planned for May & July.  These vital injections will help to secure the long-term future of the route which, with the recent increases in traffic, has a bright future.” While the work was going on a combination of revised train services and replacement coaches and buses was successfully introduced to ensure that passengers were able to continue to travel and complete their journeys. Further engineering work is currently planned from 14 to 21 May and 16 to 30 July and full details of revised train and replacement road services will be available nearer the time.