Track maintenance for late summer
19 June 2006
Track maintenance for late summer
Vital engineering work, to be carried out by Railtrack between Grays/Stanford-Le-Hope and Pitsea, will see a bus replacement service in operation for the days work will occur.
Track work takes place over the weekends beginning on Saturdays 31 August, 7 and 14 September and the week commencing Monday 2 September.
The weekend periods will see the line closed between Grays and Pitsea. Line closure between Stanford-Le-Hope and Pitsea will occur on the five consecutive days beginning on 2 September. Passengers mostly likely to be affected will be those travelling off-peak. c2c's 30,000 commuters should see no difference to their daily journeys.
The work has been scheduled to take place in a block rather than the alternative of disrupting services for 22 weekends in a row. 9.7 km of track is to be upgraded between Grays and Pitsea to maintain line reliability, as well as improving freight movement conditions. Once the work has been completed there should not only be an improvement to the quality of the journey for passengers but the line will also be free of major engineering works, other than routine maintenance, for at least two years.
c2c route director David Taylor said: "This work is necessary and needs to be carried out in the near future. We have worked closely with Railtrack to minimise the effects on our passengers' journeys and felt it would be better to have the work take place over a short period of time rather than dragging it out over months and months. We apologise for any disruption over the week or so the work takes place, but for a small minority of our customers it is a case of short term pain for long term gain."
