Our teams finished 500 projects over the August bank holiday worth £71m – all to improve your journeys. Read on for five stories from the planned works … Staying on track … We installed 7,560 metres of new rail in total. We also delivered 2,400 railway sleepers. The new track was spread out across Britain. Here’s where some of it ended up: London Waterloo We installed new rail at London Waterloo station and replaced old wooden wheel timbers with 11 composite ones. This will help support the track at this busy central station. New Cross We also replaced five sets of switches and crossing – the ..read more

We’ll carry out big upgrades and essential maintenance across Britain this August bank holiday weekend. The work’s part of our mission to improve rail journeys for you and our freight partners. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve got planned in numbers. 95% More than 95% of the railway will still stay open during this long weekend for you – causing as little disruption to your journeys as possible. £71m Our investment in this bout of bank holiday engineering works to give you better and more reliable services for the long term. 500 The number of essential projects across Britain. Thousands of our t ..read more

Liverpool Lime Street station opened on 15 August 1836. Read on for some of the station’s highlights, from a huge upgrade to improved accessibility and – of course – Eurovision. More seats for you Five years ago, we carried out lots of work to give you more seats and more reliable journeys in and out of Lime Street. Engineers replaced almost 2,000m of track, redesigned and lengthened platforms and built two new ones. Meanwhile, we installed a new, digital-ready signalling system. We moved signalling control to centrally operated Manchester Rail Operating Centre, meaning better journeys and few ..read more

This August bank holiday weekend (Saturday 26 to Monday 28 inclusive), our teams will work hard to deliver vital upgrades. More than 95% of Britain’s railway will stay open as usual while we carry out essential work. We’re investing £71m on about 500 projects across Britain this long weekend – all to bring you a more reliable railway and better journeys. What are we doing this August bank holiday? Here are just some of our projects … East Coast Digital Programme We’ll continue work on the East Coast Main Line as part of East Coast Digital Programme. Engineers will install equipment and technol ..read more

Q and A with Martina Beckford Ever wondered what it’s like to work at one of our busiest railway stations, helping some of the millions of passengers passing through? Meet Martina Beckford, a customer service assistant at London Victoria. Find out what a typical day for her looks like and why it’s the most rewarding role she’s ever had. How did you come to be in this role? I’ve been at Network Rail for two and a half years and I love it. I worked as a teaching assistant before but I’m now a customer service assistant. My job involves mobility hosting and driving the station buggy to help passe ..read more

It’s Yorkshire day today! To celebrate this beautiful county, we’ve listed highlights of one of the most exciting projects we’re working on there. The Transpennine Route Upgrade is a major programme of railway improvements that will give you better journeys along this line between York and Manchester via Leeds and Huddersfield. Here’s a snapshot of it in numbers … £ multi-billion We’re investing billions into bringing this vital line into the 21st Century. It’s the biggest programme of improvement since it was first built in Victorian times.  70 The number of miles of fully electric ..read more

London Waterloo turned 175 years old on July 11. How well do you know one of our busiest railway stations? 1. There were just 14 trains a day to and from the station when it opened in 1848. 2. The original station building was demolished in 1902 to make way for the expansion of Waterloo; its successor was destroyed during an air raid in 1941 and never rebuilt. 3. Waterloo was the last London terminus to provide steam-powered services – the last steam train went to Bournemouth in 1967. 4. The main entrance, known as Victory Arch, is Grade II listed and commemorates rail staff who died in ..read more

This week, one of Britain’s busiest railway stations – London Waterloo – turns 175 years old.   We teamed up with train operator South Western Railway for special celebrations, which included the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the landmark birthday.  A joint Network Rail and South Western Railway choir treated visitors to memorable ‘Waterloo’ songs such as ABBA’s Waterloo and The Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset.  Meanwhile, South Western Railway gave attendees a preview of one of its brand-new Arterio trains on platform 19. The fleet of 90 trains will improv ..read more

We know delays are frustrating and we do everything we can to avoid them. But when they do happen, we’ll do everything we can to help get your travel plans back on track. Watch this video Below is an animation explaining how we resolve delays and keep you informed: Incident reports We receive reports of incidents from several different sources including train operators, train and station staff, our monitoring systems, our maintenance teams and even you. An incident that causes a delay can be many things such as a broken rail, leaves on the line, a trespasser or extreme weather. If we expect de ..read more

We’re broadening our use of artificial intelligence (AI) and video technology to make the railway safer, cleaner and greener. We’re trialling AI and Automated Intelligent Video Review (AIVR) to find and remove forgotten scrap left on the side of the railway. It’s a first for our network and adds to the range of applications for AIVR across our infrastructure. AIVR is a phone-sized device mounted to the front of any train and used to take high-definition footage from across the network. Next AI analyses this footage. In this case, it looks for scrap rail, sleepers and bags of ballast, and maps ..read more