If you’re planning to catch the train north on Easter Sunday or Bank Holiday Monday be prepared for long delays.
The prospect of major engineering work on our train lines is now becoming as traditional as Easter itself, and this time around it’s no exception.
On average across the UK 16 per cent more services will be running Easter Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday compared with last year, but that’s going to be little consolation if you are heading north from Birmingham on the West Coast Mainline.
For two days work to replace old tracks will mean:
* Service to Liverpool Lime Street – replacement buses or diversions north from Crewe.
* Service to Manchester Piccadily – replacement buses or diversions because of closure between Birmingham New Street and Stafford.
Julian Burnell from Network Rail says it’s something they have got to do and they are hoping it will be completed quicker than estimated:
“What we’ve got to do is take the track out – it’s coming to the end of its usable life so we are going to remove it in its entirety, put down new track, which is going to be smoother, faster, more comfortable journeys and we’re going to have to do a lot less maintenance in the future.
“We often end up finishing work in less time that we originally planned so you could find that your journey which you thought was going to be affected isn’t actually going to be affected at all because we’ve managed to get out of the way a lot quicker…”
The advice is to check before you travel by going online or calling up National Rail Enquiries on 08457 48 49 50.
The tracks should have been replaced before the trains were privatised but the government of the day didn't want to spend any money doing that so we are now left with ultra-modern privately-owned trains trying to run on government-owned worn-out rails.
