JOURNEYS through Liverpool Lime Street will be affected for three weeks this autumn as a vital station upgrade takes place.

Carried out by Network Rail the work takes place from Saturday, September 30 ending on Sunday, October 22. During this period the station will be closed from October 20 to 22.

Many mainline services will be diverted to Liverpool South Parkway and people will be able to get to and from the city on the original Merseyrail network - at times, rail replacement buses will also be in operation.

Track, signalling and platform upgrades will be completed alongside a new platform and two extended platforms to enable an extra three services per hour to operate from Lime Street.

It will see the introduction of direct services from Lime Street to Glasgow and Chester by 2019, improved facilities at the station and new longer, straighter and safer platforms.

This is the first of two phases of work at Liverpool Lime Street with a further station closure planned in 2018.

 

Network Rail’s London North Western route managing director Martin Frobisher said: “Our Liverpool Lime Street work is the biggest upgrade of the station since the 19th century.

“It will enable faster, more frequent and reliable train services by 2019. As Liverpool’s economy grows the railway is growing too.

“We are working with rail industry and the Liverpool City Region colleagues to keep the people of Merseyside on the move throughout the Lime Street closure.

“The short-term pain of re-routed commutes will be worth the long-term gain of transformed train travel in future.”

As one of the 10 major railway upgrades across the Liverpool City Region this project sits within the wider Great North Rail Project to transform rail travel for customers.

Jan Chaudhry-van der Velde, managing director of Merseyrail, said: “We’ve been at the victim end of the Wirral Loop Line Track Renewal.

“In this case, Merseyrail will become part of the solution.

“You’ll arrive from London or Birmingham to Liverpool South Parkway and from platform five or six where there will be a Merseyrail six-car ready to take you on a 15-minute basis ready to take you into the city centre.

“The choice of stations – Moorfields or central in the commercial district may be more favourable to those than Lime Street.

“In terms of journey times there will be an increase of around 13 to 15 minutes.

“Our six-car trains can take up to 610 people comfortably so near enough everyone will be able to get their first connection.”

For more information visit www.networkrail.co.uk