Commuters fear repeat of 2008 rail fiasco

RAIL passengers have voiced their concern that all services between Rugby and London will stop running for an entire fortnight next August.

They will be suspended while £81m worth of major improvements are made to the West Coast Main Line at Watford to “improve the punctuality of train services on Britain’s busiest mixed-use railway line”.

The track will also be closed at bank holidays and again for a whole week in February 2015. Alternative arrangements for Rugby passengers have not yet been made public.

It has led to fears of a repeat of 2008 when the line reopened almost a week later than expected when what was supposed to be the final part of the huge upgrade of the line over Christmas in 2007 overran.

Back then Network Rail was fined £14million because of the disruption caused to commuters returning to work in January while the line remained completely closed. Further weekend closures of the line had to be introduced while engineers finished the work.

Rugby Rail Users Group (RRUG) chair Stephanie Clifford said this week: "This work at Watford should have been done in 2007 but it was not, so after all the rebuilding and disruption on the West Coast line we now find there is more to come.

“This cannot be a happy experience for passengers.”

Network Rail said the work was necessary because the line, which is one of the most intensively used high-speed sections of track in the UK, had seen huge growth in traffic and passengers over the last five years.

The company said it would normally carry out work of this kind over a number of weekends, but this project would require 54 complete weekend closures of the line, disrupting passengers for well over a year.

Dyan Crowther, route managing director for London North Western, said: “There is never a good time to carry out major work on such a busy route.

“However, after careful discussion with the train operators and industry partners, it became apparent that carrying out this vital investment over five longer closures between May 2014 and Easter 2015 when fewer people travel would, overall, cause less disruption.”

The improvements include upgrades to signalling, junctions and track, and plans to increase speed of the fast lines through Watford from 80mph to 125mph.

RRUG will post updates when alternative travel arrangements are announced on its website rugbyrailusersgroup.org.uk.

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