Network Rail and train operators have announced ‘79-days of carefully planned engineering’ to improve the track and signalling around Derby station under a £200m upgrade.
The infrastructure operator and CrossCountry and East Midlands Trains, who manage the station, have acknowledged that the work will cause significant disruption.
They said that because the work requires removal of track and signalling there will be significant changes to the timetable between 22 July 2018 and 7 October 2018.
Rob McIntosh, managing director for Network Rail’s London North Eastern and East Midlands (LNE&EM) route, said: ‘It is many decades since the rail infrastructure at Derby saw this kind of investment and we have spent a huge amount of time working with our train operators, stakeholders and local businesses to make sure we keep disruption to a minimum while getting this vital work done as quickly as possible.
‘Derby is a key interchange on the Midland Main Line and once the upgrade is complete and the bottleneck removed, the region will benefit from a more efficient, reliable and modern network fit to meet the needs of the economies and communities our railway serves.’
Network Rail said that while the station itself was modernised in 2013, the track has not been improved since it was installed nearly 50 years ago and is nearing the end of its operational life, while the signalling has not been upgraded since it was installed in the 1960s.
As track and signalling work together to manage train movements, they are both being replaced and upgraded at the same time.
Network Rail called the Derby 2018 project ‘a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve a vital part of the rail network which carries trains bound for as far afield as Aberdeen to the north and Plymouth to the south, as well as ervices right across the Midlands’.
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