Multi-million-pound improvement work over Easter bank holiday

Network Rail engineers are gearing up for a £90 million programme of work over the Easter bank holiday long weekend.

Work includes replacing bridges or whole junctions and is aimed at improving the railway for passengers and freight businesses.

The majority of improvement work will actually be carried out overnight, but some larger projects need longer to complete.

Network Rail says the vast majority of the rail network will be unaffected and will remain open.

Locations where major work will be carried out include:

• Euston to Milton Keynes – this stretch of the West Coast Main Line will be closed over all four days for work to take place laying new track near Kensal Green tunnel and replacing a busy junction just south of Milton Keynes itself. Buses will run from Potters Bar to Watford Junction and Milton Keynes to London.
• Glasgow – work to renew tracks and points, which allow trains to cross from one track to another, will take place over a major junction between Glasgow Central and Cambuslang/Polmadie Depot. The work will mean changes to train times across the long weekend.
• Huddersfield – work continues on the Transpennine Route Upgrade, with new tracks being laid around the city and changes to trains on routes such as Sheffield to Leeds and all trains to Huddersfield itself.

Network Rail’s network strategy director, Laurence Bowman, said: “There’s never a good time to do the work we need to do but the four days of the bank holiday, when fewer people are travelling, give us the opportunity to do major work we couldn’t do in normal weekend.

That’s projects such as renewing major junctions or relaying many miles of track.

“When we do close the railway, we do everything we can to get as much work into those closures as possible. We’ve got 493 different pieces of work taking place this Easter, most happening overnight, including laying over 8,000 metres of new rail and putting down over 40,000 tonnes of new ballast to support the tracks.”