Network
Contributing Writer rail@bauermedia.co.uk
A key section of the West Coast Main Line between Rugby and Stafford has been closed over January 20-21 to enable the commissioning of new signalling that has taken seven years to fully install.
The inter-city route was scheduled to reopen on Monday January 22 (after this issue of RAIL went to press), at which point Rugby Control Centre was set to gain responsibility for 39 new signals and 124 axle counters in the Colwich and Rugeley Trent Valley areas. The project has cost £85 million.
During the closure, Avanti West Coast was unable to operate long-distance services out of Euston, and trains to and from Liverpool ran two-hourly only as far as Crewe. Buses replaced trains between Rugby and Stafford and Crewe and Stafford via Stoke-on-Trent.
Elsewhere across the UK, it was a busy Christmas and New Year for Network Rail, with the infrastructure owner taking advantage of low levels of passenger and freight usage to proceed with essential upgrades.
■ Services were suspended across much of Kent and Sussex over ten days, in the latest £127m programme of investment. There was also further work to install extra ticket gatelines at London Victoria station, which will be ready by the summer.
■ The rebuild continues of the major junction between Clapham and Wandsworth. Work also continues on the upgrade of 1980s signalling between Herne Hill and Nunhead into London Victoria station. The latter should be ready for commissioning at the end of this year.
Landslips continue to be a problem, and the latest cutting to be strengthened is between Hurst Green and Uckfield.
■ There were no services out of London Paddington between December 24-27, to give engineers full access to relay track at West Drayton.
Long-distance services terminated at Reading with onward travel to either Ealing Broadway or London Waterloo. London Underground's Piccadilly Line maintained rail access to Heathrow Airport.
■ The resignalling of the main line through Cornwall is on schedule for completion in the spring, following another full possession between December 24-27.
And London-South Wales services were cancelled or diverted on December 30/31 because the Severn Tunnel was blocked for overhead line maintenance. Buses ran between Bristol Parkway and Newport, and from Temple Meads to Cardiff.
■ In Scotland, NR completed £15m worth of upgrades that included the nine-day replacement of almost a mile of track plus signalling at Greenhill Junction (near Falkirk on the Edinburgh-Glasgow main line).
