Media centre

Monday 5 Oct 2015

Work to rebuild Walsall’s Park Street bridge gets under way as part of electrification programme

Network Rail will start work this week to rebuild Park Street bridge in Walsall as the electrification of the Chase Line continues.

Fifteen miles of railway between Walsall, Hednesford and Rugeley Trent Valley is being electrified to provide a cleaner, greener and more regular train service for passengers.

To create enough clearance underneath bridges for overhead wires to be installed to power the trains, a number of bridges are being rebuilt along the line. Park Street bridge, which sits in the middle of the town centre, has to be rebuilt and the work has been carefully planned to cause the minimum amount of disruption to local people and businesses.

The work will take place in three stages and only one side of the street will be closed at a time so Park Street always remains open for business. Work starts this week until the end of November when it will stop for the entire Christmas and New Year period. It will restart in January 2016 and be completed by Easter 2016.

Liam Sumpter, area director for Network Rail, said: “Electrification provides a greener, faster and more reliable railway, providing a better service to passengers in Walsall and across the wider West Midlands. A significant amount of work is required to upgrade the railway and much is already under way or completed as part of our investment.

“Replacing this bridge is essential to allow the line to be electrified and while there will be some disruption when the work takes place, we have done all we can to keep it to a minimum. I’d like to thank local people and traders for their patience.”

Network Rail has worked closely with Walsall Council to plan the work and minimise the disruption in the surrounding area

Work to rebuild Park Street bridge was originally due to start in October 2015 but was rescheduled until October 2016 after complications were found. Engineers discovered the bridge, which dates back to the 1930s, was different to the original plans. This meant the planned removal by crane had to be reassessed. The new timetable of work won’t impact the overall electrification project, which is set to be completed by the end of 2017.

To find out more about the work and our plans to electrify the railway, please visit www.networkrail.co.uk/electrification or call Network Rail’s national helpline on 03457 11 41 41.