Media centre

Saturday 23 Aug 2025

West Coast Main Line reopens after £43m upgrades across three counties

Region & Route:

North West & Central

| North West & Central: Central

| North West & Central: North West

| North West & Central: West Coast Mainline South

Passengers are being thanked for their patience after a 21-day closure of the West Coast Main Line through Staffordshire, Cheshire and Greater Manchester for multiple upgrades to improve future journeys for passengers and freight.

This morning (Saturday 23 August) the 50-mile stretch of railway, where improvements to bridges, tracks, overhead lines and lineside structures have been taking place, fully reopened to trains.

Those projects all took place while the railway through Stockport was completely closed for a major £20m project to remove and rebuild a 67-year-old railway bridge over five lines to the south of the town’s station.

Network Rail has released footage of the first trains running through Stockport from just after 5am this morning to mark the railway reopening, alongside time-lapse footage of the dismantling and reconstruction of Greek Street railway bridge over the last 21-days.

The rare three-week railway closure over a wide geography gave the company and its supply chain the perfect opportunity to carry out numerous railway improvement schemes while the routes in and out of Stockport were closed to train traffic, including:

• Track and points renewal in Macclesfield
• Platform reconstruction at Poynton station in Cheshire
• Footbridge renovations at Longport station in Stoke-on-Trent
• River Trent Viaduct waterproofing in Stone
• Track upgrades at Hixon, Stone and Congleton
• Track and points renewal at Stone station 
• Level crossing upgrades at Meaford, Church Lane, and Aston-by-Stone crossings in Stone
• Track and drainage improvements near Trentham

Combined with the work at Greek Street, the full portfolio of work carried out by Network Rail and its partners to improve the West Coast Main Line was in excess of £43m.

John Nixon, Network Rail Capital Delivery senior programme manager, said: “We’d like to thank passengers impacted by this significant railway closure of the West Coast Main Line for the last three weeks. It’s allowed us to invest tens of millions of pounds and make wide ranging improvements to provide a safer and more reliable railway, benefiting journeys for passengers and freight in the future.

“While we completed this work all in time as planned for the bank holiday, with services expected to be busy with major events and football matches, railway upgrades on further parts of the network and strike action today by staff at CrossCountry trains, we’d still advise people to check before they travel so they know what to expect from their journey this weekend.”

With all the work completed, the railway is ready to welcome passengers once more, ahead of a very busy August bank holiday.

Numerous events are taking place across the country, including Manchester’s annual Pride festival, Creamfields, Reading and Leeds festivals, Notting Hill Carnival, and full programme of football matches.

Passengers planning to travel to these events by train are advised to plan their journey ahead, and avoid waiting until the last train home, as services are expected to be very busy.

Meanwhile, strike action by staff at CrossCountry will impact journeys to and from Manchester and Birmingham over the bank holiday weekend. 

The train operator is advising its passengers to not travel today (Saturday 23 August) and travel either side of the Bank Holiday weekend - for more information click here.

Further railway upgrades by Network Rail will also see buses replace trains between Birmingham International and Birmingham New Street on Sunday 25 and Monday 25 August.

As well as this, track upgrades are being completed in the Euston area over the bank holiday weekend, with services running to an amended timetable.

People are advised to check before they travel at www.nationalrail.co.uk.