We just completed more than £100m of vital railway upgrades and maintenance projects over the this Easter weekend to give you better journeys across Britain.
Our teams carried out 600 projects around the country between Friday 2 and Monday 5 April 2021. They included vital improvements to give you better and more reliable train services for the long term.
What happened over Easter?
East Coast Upgrade
We make more progress on the £1.2bn East Coast Upgrade. The huge project will give you more trains and quicker journeys along the East Coast Main Line, which runs from London to Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle.
We maintained and remodelled the overhead lines, which power electric trains, and made vital improvements to the track layout at London King’s Cross station. This is work forms part of the main stage of the East Coast Upgrade.
The station itself got a big modernisation in 2012 but much of the track and signalling equipment – which tells trains when it’s safe to proceed – that serve the track was more than 40 years old and getting harder to maintain.
Simplifying the tracks leading to the station would improve reliability of your services by making it easier for trains to arrive and leave. We got to work replacing the track, signalling and overhead line equipment across the one-and-a-half mile approach to the station.
Read more about the East Coast Upgrade work at Easter.
Gallery: rebuilding the platforms at London King’s Cross as part of the track simplification; overhead line equipment work at King’s Cross
Greater London
Elsewhere in the London area, improvements ranged from new signalling to keep your journeys safe and reliable, to an impressive bridge replacement.
At Stratford in East London, we upgraded the overhead line equipment for this busy part of the railway into London Liverpool Street station. Under blue skies, the Orbit tower in the background provides a nice backdrop.
We also made more preparations for the introduction of Elizabeth Line services – the new Crossrail route, which will run from East to West London. This involved Transport for London’s platform reconfiguration and track realignment works at London Liverpool Street.
In Kent, we replaced the Victorian Hythe Road bridge just outside Dartford station to give you more reliable services:
Read more about our Easter rail works in the Greater London area.
Great North Rail Project
The Great North Rail Project is a huge project that by next will will have delivered billions of pounds of improvements to rail connections in the North of England.
At Easter, our team at Warrington Bank Quay station in Cheshire upgraded a bridge to give you more reliable journeys through the area.
Watch the video to find out more:
Somerset
Meanwhile, we renewed a junction at Witham Friary in Somerset to give you smoother journeys. We used a tamping machine to pack the new stones – or ballast – around the replacement track:
At Somerton, we removed the rail and sleepers so we could lay new track:
Read more:
- Easter engineering works 2021
- Easter rail works – spotlight on Greater London
- Why we carry out works over weekends and bank holidays
- Delays explained – overhead line equipment
- World Engineering Day: Trackside Tara and 300 tonnes of concrete
- World Engineering Day 2021: six awesome projects on the railway