IPlantE Events

West Coast Main Line modernisation

26th Jan 2010
Sheffield & District Regional Group

A group of engineers from Blackburn recently attended a lecture on the West Coast Main Line modernisation, presented by Network Rail’s Simon Maple.

Simon detailed some of the route’s history, explaining why the decision to upgrade was taken in the 1990s, to improve the speed and frequency of the trains north from London.

Work had to be scheduled to cause as little disruption as possible, whilst incorporating challenging aims to increase the size of the loading gauge to take the larger rolling stock used on the continent, and upgrade the slow line to enable 100 mph running.

Extra track was also installed to make a four-line section in the Trent Valley, and a new layout was installed at Rugby to increase train speed and station capacity. In total, some 430 miles of track were upgraded.

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