Engineering works
Get details of routes affected by engineering work at National Rail Enquiries:
Current service disruptions
Future engineering works
Or check with your train company.
Holidays, events and festivals
Train times may be altered to accommodate increases in demand during sporting events, music festivals and other large scale public events.
For details visit National Rail Enquiries holidays and events.
Why do engineering works over bank holidays?
We do maintenance and upgrade work every night of the year. The few hours access to the track that our teams get is not enough to complete larger scale work such as:
- Replacing bridges
- Changing track layouts
- Upgrading signalling systems
We usually have to close a section of the track for 24 hours or more to carry out this work. Much of this is scheduled for public holidays because the railway is relatively quiet for a few days and the inevitable disruption affects fewer people.
The improvements that we are making allow more trains to run, at higher speeds and also improves the reliability of the rail network, reducing delays.
For further information, see our page on maintenance and engineering work.