During the Christmas period, whilst many people were enjoying the festivities at home, Network Rail engineers were working around the clock on several major upgrades.

London’s Liverpool Street station, which is the UK’s busiest station, was closed for eight days to enable work to take place on renewing the roof, with 224 roof panels and 53 access (maintenance) hatches above the concourse being replaced.

At the same time, the roof’s rainwater drainage system was improved to enable it to cope with more frequent and intense rainstorms, and scaffolding on platforms 7/8 was removed.

At Bethnal Green in East London, sleepers and seven sets of points were replaced on the West Anglia main line.

On London Overground’s Mildmay line, between Camden Road and Richmond/Shepherd’s Bush, ten sets of points were replaced and completed in time to resume services on Monday, 5th January.

In Cambridge, Network Rail and Alstom engineers completed the second stage of the Cambridge re-signalling project.

After 40 years of service, at just after midnight on Christmas Day, the Cambridge power signal box was switched off for the last time, with a ‘FAREWELL’ message being displayed on the signalling panel.

Work during Christmas included installation and testing of new digital workstations and computer equipment that uses Alstom’s signalling control programme; the new equipment also controls Cambridge South station. New signals were also installed, and old, redundant signalling cabinets were removed.

Replacement of level crossing equipment with manually-controlled barriers with CCTV, at Meldreth Road in Hertfordshire, was completed a week ahead of schedule. The new crossing has full barriers operated remotely using CCTV cameras.

At Ipswich in Suffolk, sleepers were replaced over a 2.1 km stretch of line, rails were replaced near Great Bentley in Essex, and a new buffer stop was installed at platform 4 at Clacton-on-Sea station in Essex.

A pedestrian footbridge at Kennedy Road in Barking, which had been closed since 2022, was reopened after a replacement pedestrian footbridge had been installed.

“We’ve delivered major renewals and repairs over the festive period and I want to take this opportunity to thank all our passengers, for their patience while we have completed these important engineering work across our network. There is never a good time to close the railway, but over Christmas the railway sees passenger numbers drop by 50% and this is the best opportunity to complete as much work as we can when the railway is quieter than usual.”

Katie Frost, Network Rail’s route director for Anglia