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Tuesday 7 Apr 2015

West Coast main line reopens on time after successful Easter upgrade work

Region & Route:

The West Coast main line fully reopened on time today (Tuesday 7 April) after Network Rail successfully completed the latest phase of upgrade work at Watford.

From the last trains on Thursday (2 April), work took place at Watford until early this morning to replace and install new a new bridge to the south of the station, renew sections of railway and bring into use an important junction which will provide greater flexibility, particularly during times of disruption.

Martin Frobisher, route managing director for Network Rail, said: “I’d like to thank passengers and those who live alongside the railway for their patience during this disruptive work.

“There is never a good time to close the railway and we apologise for the inconvenience caused. We used the time to successfully install a new bridge and bring back into use a new junction which will help give the millions of passengers who travel on this route every year a more reliable journey.

“The section of track in the Watford area is one of the most intensively used, high-speed pieces of railway in Britain and has seen tremendous growth in traffic and passengers over the last five years. This ongoing work is essential to provide an efficient and reliable railway for decades to come.”

Terry Oliver, London Midland's head of west coast services, said: "Thank you again to our passengers for their patience and cooperation whilst these improvement works are carried out.

“Although subject to longer journey times, passengers who had to travel with us were able to reach their destinations using the rail-replacement bus operation and alternative travel arrangements that London Midland put in place. However, the majority of passengers followed our advice to travel with other operators or on different dates.

“I’d like to thank passengers for following this advice over Easter.”

Phil Bearpark, Virgin Trains’ executive director for operations and projects, said: “We’d like to thank our customers for bearing with us during the engineering works that have taken place.

“There’s no good time to close a route as busy as the West Coast main line but the significant investment being undertaken by Network Rail since May 2014 is vital to ensure this hard-worked corridor can operate efficiently.

“We’ve worked really hard with Network Rail and other industry colleagues to get the message out to our customers about the disruption to normal journeys and ensure they have good information on which to plan their journeys. As a result, we’ve significant reduction in reservations on the affected days, which is encouraging.

With the latest phases of work complete Network Rail is now planning for a further two closures on the West Coast main line at Watford in February 2016.