Wednesday 28 Dec 2016
West Coast Mainline reopens after Christmas upgrade work
- Region & Route:
- | North West & Central
The West Coast Mainline has reopened after a programme of upgrades over Christmas.
As part of Network Rail’s Railway Upgrade Plan, planned work was carried out from Christmas Day to Tuesday 27 December.
Among the work undertaken were improvements to the power supply near Milton Keynes; upgrade of points at Birmingham New Street and replacement of tracks in Carlisle.
Martin Frobisher, route managing director at Network Rail said “I’d like to thank the public for their patience over the festive period. We understand that work of this magnitude can be disruptive so we appreciate everybody’s tolerance throughout the period of work.”
Almost all services are running to timetable, however some between Stafford and Rugby are subject to delays. Passengers planning on travelling today (28 December) should check before travelling at nationalrail.co.uk.
Major work continues to the Ordsall Chord – a new section of railway which will link Manchester Victoria and Piccadilly stations for the first time in their history – with the removal of a bridge and the electrification of railway lines. The work is scheduled to continue until 3 January.
Passengers can plan their journeys and check before they travel at www.nationalrail.co.uk/christmas.
Contact information
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03457 11 41 41
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0330 854 0100
NWCmediarelations@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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