Easter travel: Engineering works to cause major disruption to UK travel over bank holidays and beyond
The Easter holidays and beyond are set to be disrupted thanks to railway engineering works.
A six-day surge of engineering works will cause major disruption to travel over Easter, commuters are being warned. The shutdown is planned on the West Coast Main Line (WCML), hitting inter-city services between London Euston and Milton Keynes - a major commuter route.
The engineering works are planned from Good Friday (April 3) to Wednesday, April 8, Network Rail said, with trains resuming on Thursday, April 9, as part of a £400 million project to increase reliability on the WCML, Europe’s busiest railway line used for passenger and freight trains.
In north-west London, new track will be laid at Willesden while Harrow and Wealdstone station will see repairs and upgrades, while a bridge in Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, will be given extra protection to prevent future damage.
Elsewhere on the UK rail network, engineers will deliver more than 270 other upgrade projects over the Easter period, which will see no WCML services between Preston and Lancaster on Saturday, April 4, or the following day, Easter Sunday. Avanti West Coast will run services between Preston and Carlisle via the Settle and Carlisle line.
Elsewhere, Anglo-Scottish services will be diverted via Dumfries and Kilmarnock between Good Friday and Easter Monday, while the same period will see services between London Waterloo and Clapham Junction reduced, and no trains between Winchester and Southampton in Hampshire, or between Herne Bay and Ramsgate in Kent.
Jake Kelly, Network Rail regional director for the North West and Central region, said: “We know how important bank holidays are – particularly at Easter, when families and friends come together – and that’s why we work hard to keep as much of the network open as possible while carrying out these vital upgrades.
“However, bank holidays are also among the least busy times on the railway, and the four-day period at Easter gives us a valuable opportunity to complete projects that simply can’t be delivered during a normal weekend.
“This ensures we maximise the time our teams are out working on the tracks. So passengers will see some changes and it’s a good idea for people to check before they travel.”