East West Rail lays track between Bicester and Bletchley

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A track construction train has made its final visit to the first connection stage of East West Rail, with track laying now 99% complete.

With passenger services due to start between Bicester and Bletchley in 2025, the milestone brings the benefits of EWR even closer to local communities – enabling better access to jobs, education and healthcare, and making it easier to see family and friends and travel for leisure.

Once complete there will be 66km of new track between Bletchley and Bicester with the final welding, stressing and ‘tamping’ (track alignment) works to be completed in the New Year.

Installation of the signalling and telecoms equipment needed to operate the railway is also well underway, and once completed, will be followed by dynamic train testing before the railway reopens in 2025. Once open this section of line will provide direct passenger services between Oxford, Bletchley and Milton Keynes for the first time in over 50 years.  

This phase of the project is being delivered by the East West Rail Alliance which was appointed by Network Rail to construct the Bicester to Bletchley section of new railway. The track itself has been laid by a state of the art “New Track Construction Train”, one of only two such machines in the whole country.

The NTC train uses an automated track laying system which is faster than using conventional track laying methods and can lay up to 1km of new track a day. Use of the NTC train has also helped to remove around 4,000 lorry journeys from local roads during the construction period. To update people on the progress, East West Railway Company and the East West Rail Alliance have produced a video to show the NTC train in action, available on their website.

EWR Alliance Director Mark Cuzner said: “It is good to see the progress we have made with our track construction programme in the last 12 to 18 months. Our team has worked tirelessly with our supply chain partners and Network Rail to meticulously schedule all the engineering trains necessary to support the track construction.

“Witnessing the 58^th and final NTC shift is testament to the combined efforts of the entire team and with 99% of the rail now laid, the project is in a healthy position to complete the final section of track installation in the New Year to allow installation of the railway systems before testing of the new railway later in 2024.”

Work to complete both Winslow station and the new high-level platforms at Bletchley are also progressing well. At Winslow, platform shelters are being installed on the two new platforms, accessible lifts are being installed on the new footbridge which provides access from the station building to the new platforms and the construction of the new car park began in early November. At Bletchley, cladding is being installed to the exterior of the building, whilst the footbridge and accessible lift linking two new platforms to the main station are also now in place.