Network Rail engineers have carried out major railway upgrade works in Manchester, including the complete reconstruction of two railway bridges, the strengthening and waterproofing of others and significant track upgrades.
The upgrade works form part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) which will bring faster, more reliable services to passengers travelling between Manchester and York, via Huddersfield and Leeds.
With work taking place across a 16-day period between July 31, 2021 and August 15, 2021, Network Rail entirely replaced the railway bridges on Dantzic Street and Queens Road, as well as strengthening and waterproofing Bromley Street and Oldham Road bridges.
Over 3,000m of track was also upgraded, with track also remodelled between Manchester Victoria and Stalybridge, and 17 new signals installed.
Further work, in order to make the final changes, is planned on August 22 and Sundays following through to early October 2021, with plans to do so with as minimal disruption to passengers as is safe to do so.
These TRU upgrade works are viewed as essential to enable more trains and faster trains to run in future, with the newly renovated bridges allowing increased weight loading of more trains. The remodelled track will allow trains to run at faster speeds.
Neil Holm, Transpennine Route Upgrade Director for Network Rail, said: “We’ve made major progress across Greater Manchester on this key part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade. Our teams have worked around the clock over the past 16 days to improve journeys for passengers.
“As well as bringing more reliable services, this complex upgrade will eventually allow more trains and faster trains to run on the busy route between Manchester and York.
“We carefully planned the work to keep passengers moving during the upgrade. I want to say a big thank you to passengers for their patience while the improvements took place.”
