Some more much needed capacity is to be added to the West Coast Mainline under a junction improvement scheme at Norton Bridge in Staffordshire approved under the Coalition Government.
Work will involve constructing an extra 6 miles of 100 mph track, plus 10 new bridges, including the all-important flyover across the line to Crewe.
A high output track construction machine recently started to lay the track on the new trackbed leading up to the flyover. The machine being used cancan lay up to 180m per hour and is up to 50% quicker again than conventional track-laying methods.
The junction scheme will separate high speed trains from slower local services and freight in order to reduce congestion. Apart from improvements to freight and local services there will be capacity for two extra trains per hour between London and the North-West and one extra train per hour between Manchester and Birmingham.
The entire scheme, which also involves a new freight loop, the replacement of old signalling, telecoms and power supplies and an upgrade in maximum speeds on the the ‘slow’ lines from 75mph to 100mph, will be completed by 2017.