Rail Journeys Difficult on New Years Eve

21/12/2007

Network Rail has announced it needs an extra day of closures to finish work on some of its lines. This will cause major disruptions on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Customers who have already booked train journeys may endure delays and could have to find other modes of transport on January 1st 2008.

Ben Webster at Times Online writes: “Thousands of passengers who have booked train journeys on New Year’s Eve will endure long delays and have to catch buses after Network Rail announced that it had miscalculated how long it would take to complete engineering works.”

Network Rail is supposed to follow a policy which says it must give 12 weeks notice before closing lines. Virgin Trains has complained to the Office of Rail Regulation because it says 50,000 passengers are affected from the closure set for New Year’s Day. The Office of Rail Regulation, which is investigating and could fine Network Rail for breaching its legal requirement to give proper notice of works.

Chief executive of Passenger Focus, Anthony Smith says: “This is unbelievable. Thousands of passengers have booked or planned New Year travel in good faith. We feel very let down and want reassurances that the huge amount of engineering work planned for next year will not run into similar problems.”