Significant progress is being made on the development of a new train track travelling to and from Bristol Temple Meads station.

Rail Minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, visited Bristol to see the progress Network Rail is making on completing the £132m Department for Transport-funded project.

Network Rail engineers have been working around the clock to complete the track upgrade which involves removing a bottleneck into Bristol Temple Meads and installing a clever new track layout just north of the station. This will allow more trains to enter and exit the station, increase capacity, reduce congestion and help make journeys more reliable.

The eight-week project started on Saturday 10 July and is scheduled to finish on Friday 03 September. In addition to replacing the 1960s track and components, work is also ongoing to install state of the art signalling equipment.

Engineers have already replaced over 2.1km of track, laid around 7,000 tonnes of ballast (stones that support the track), completed over 400 welds and realigned 200m of copers to suit the new track alignment design on platforms 1, 3 and 5 to ensure the safe and smooth running of the railway.

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Last weekend work continued to remove the old signalling gantry and upload the data onto the new signalling gantry, which was installed over the Christmas period last year (2020).

Attention now turns to the London side of the junction whereby engineers will repeat the similar process of digging out and replacing the old track and stone, focusing on the railway lines towards Bath Spa and London Paddington.

As part of the upgrade of Bristol East Junction, an extra line is also being introduced which will support new suburban services in the future as part of the West of England Combined Authority’s (WECA) MetroWest scheme. Once complete, this scheme will provide over 4,000 additional seats on trains every day in the area.

While this work is ongoing, there will continue to be a number of timetable changes to train services, including bus replacement services at times. Passengers are reminded to check before travelling and where possible plan ahead of their journeys.

Minister Heaton-Harris said: "This £132 million investment will mean more regular and more reliable trains with more seats coming through the station as we increase access to opportunities and better connect communities across the region.

"Alongside this we are doing an extensive refurbishment of Bristol Temple Meads, providing better passenger facilities and improved accessibility.

"This is another great example of how we are building back better in Bristol and levelling up the South West."