Media centre

Thursday 2 Jan 2020

Thank you to Anglia rail passengers after major infrastructure upgrades over the festive period

Region & Route:

Eastern: Anglia

Major upgrades have been carried out on the Anglia region’s rail network to help improve services for passengers and freight services.

Over the Christmas and New Year period, Network Rail engineers carried out the following work as part of its Railway Upgrade Plan:

• Installed new overhead wires at Wickford on the Southend Victoria branch line as part of a £46m investment to reduce delays and improve reliability
• Replaced track and points at Colchester to reduce the risk of points failures and make journeys more reliable for passengers and freight trains.
• Continued work for the Crossrail programme in East London 
• Essential bridge strengthening work and repairs in Rochford, Essex and at Prickwillow near Ely
• Carried out track maintenance and repairs in the Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green area.
• Enabled continued TfL works on Barking Riverside extension

The work was completed during the quietest period for travel on the rail network with around half the normal number of passengers travelling compared to the 4.7 million who typically use the network daily.

Across the country 20,560 railway staff delivered 386 projects over the Christmas and New Year period and Network Rail invested £111m to improve the national network.

Mark Budden, Network Rail Anglia Route Director, said: “Over the Christmas and New Year period hundreds of our railway staff carried out crucial improvements and upgrades to the Anglia rail network.

“We took great care to keep the disruption to a minimum though, inevitably, some train services were affected so I’d like to thank our passengers for their patience and understanding while we carried out the works.

“We will continue to improve the network in 2020 and work in partnership with train operators to deliver a better service for passengers and freight users.”