Ahead of important railway upgrades, passengers are reminded to check before they travel over the next two weekends.

The work will finish off a series of weekend work, which started in February, to upgrade the overhead lines between Bedford and London.

This means that on the 24th and 25th May, there will be no East Midlands Railway services running south of Bedford and no Thameslink trains between Bedford and Harpenden/Mill Hill Broadway.

The following weekend (31st May- 1st June) will again see no East Midlands services south of Bedford.

This investment and closure will allow a new, greener fleet of trains for EMR and improve reliability for Thameslink passengers. Some track maintenance and drainage work will also be carried out over the weekends.

Trains which are running are expected to be busy, especially on the 24th when Sheffield United fans will be travelling to Wembley for the Championship Play-Off Final.

Sunderland fans will also be making their way to Wembley, and there are music festivals which will make London King’s Cross very busy.

Those travelling to Wembley should allow extra time to get to their destinations, and passengers who aren’t attending may consider travelling outside of the football traffic.

Services will be covered by rail replacement services, which can be checked on National Rail‘s website.

“We’re continuing to make great progress on transforming the Midland Main Line, and this run of weekend working enabled major steps to be taken.

“Our engineers are carrying out upgrades to the overhead power lines which will make services more reliable and enable the introduction of EMRs new trains.  We’re also installing new drainage and maintaining track.  

“We know this work can be disruptive for passengers. We’re sorry to those whose journeys will be affected but ask passengers to bear with us and plan ahead while we carry out these essential upgrades.”

Dan Matthews, Network Rail head of operations delivery