Bank holidays are important times for us to carry out major upgrades and regular maintenance.
They’re part of our mission improve train journeys for you and our freight partners.
Here’s a rundown of what we got up to over the late May bank holiday weekend …
£60m
Our investment in our most recent bank holiday engineering works. They involved thousands of team members working around the clock to keep to schedule.
550+
The number of upgrade projects across Britain – all completed on time, meaning less disruption for you.
9,646
The railway sleepers delivered as part of our upgrades. They help form the foundation that support the rails.
83
The engineering trains that helped us get our work done. They carried our workers and equipment to and from the work sites.
£4.3m
Our investment in upgrading sections of the West Coast Main Line between Preston and Carlisle. Some of this work included:
- improving railway foundation stone in Carlisle
- laying out new track being laid between Preston and Lancaster
- ballast cleaning in Warrington.
We’re committed to transforming the railways in North of England as part of the multi-billion pound long-term Great North Rail Project.
Essential upgrades elsewhere in Britain included …
- Track maintenance on the Vale of Glamorgan line in Wales, to improve the reliability of service on this important route to Cardiff Airport.
- Replacing two sets of switches and crossings – the movable sections of track that guide trains from one track to another – and 300m of track at Rochester Bridge Junction. This will mean smoother journeys on the Chatham and North Kent lines for many years to come.
- Removing ‘wet beds’– sections of track where the stones and sleepers are so wet, they cause uneven and bumpy train rides. Plus other vital track work on the line between Woking to Winchester and Basingstoke to Andover.
- Continuing upgrading the signalling – the railway’s traffic light system – between Feltham and Wokingham. This is part of a four-year £375m investment to further improve reliability in the Basingstoke area.
- Building a brand-new accessible Headbolt Lane station in Kirkby for better services in the Liverpool City Region, a local authority.
- Stabilising an embankment at Crowborough, allowing railway lines to pass through the low-lying ground there safely.
