| West Coast Main Line – Major Work Completed |
| Sunday, 14 September 2008 | |
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The major investment work on the west coast main line has now been completed which will lead to introduction of over 350 new services a day. Passengers and freight users will benefit from the £9bn project once it is finally completed in December. The project will enable a huge increase in services across the route and faster and more comfortable journeys with the introduction of a new timetable across the entire 400 miles of the west coast route. Peter Strachan, Network Rail route director, said: "The end is now in sight for the project and the prize of a bigger, better railway for passengers and freight users is only a few more steps away. December will see a massive increase in services along the west coast main line and a dramatic cut in journey times." Over 4,000 engineers have been working since the August bank holiday to improve the railway at seven major locations covering over 130 miles of the west coast main line. The seven locations of major improvement work were:
New signalling, lengthening platforms, new track and points and overhead line work completed on time and re-opened Monday 1st September)
New signalling, new track and new points (completed on time and re-opened Monday8 September)
New track and overhead line and signalling work (completed on time and re-opened on Monday 1st September)
Two new platforms opened, new subway, refurbishment of 450m flyover, new track, new points and signalling and overhead line work (completed on time and re-opened on Wednesday 27th August)
New track and extending a platform (completed on time and re-opened on Tuesday 26th August)
Refurbishment of the subway (completed on time and re-opened on Tuesday 26th August)
New track and new sets of points (completed on time and re-opened on Tuesday 26th August) Andy Thomas, operations director at London Midland, said: "We are pleased that this major milestone in the west coast main line modernisation has now been achieved - from December, it will allow us to run more frequent services on some of our most popular routes, and to serve some destinations that have not had a rail service for a few years. "Chris Gibb, chief operating officer for Virgin Trains said: "I apologise to our customers for the extended journey times and lower frequencies they have experienced over the last two weeks. From today, we shall be offering normal weekday schedules and will be doing everything possible along with Network Rail to ensure good levels of performance" Work continues on the project during weekday nights and at weekends with the key remaining piece of work being the bringing into operation the new signalling and track layout in and around Rugby in November. The new timetable will be introduced on Sunday 14th December 2008 with almost 375 new services. Initially 95% of the services will be implemented from 14th December with the remaining 5% being phased in at the end of January 2009 to help deliver a smooth introduction of the new timetable taking the total number of new services to 390.
From December all the substantial gains of the new timetable will be delivered:
Substantial reductions in journey time including:
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