Morley works to impact West Yorks travel

Nine days of upgrades are due to take place from 17 June, with no trains at all running between Huddersfield and Leeds on the project’s first two days.

Network Rail’s Transpennine Route Upgrade programme is reminding passengers travelling along the rail line between Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds and York to plan well ahead to work around the disruption.

Over nine days, engineers working on the route upgrade will start to demolish Morley’s old platforms, construct new ones, realign tracks and activate a track turn-back (which allows trains to turn around) and re-control signals to Network Rail’s rail operating centre in York.

For most of the nine days, diversionary rail routes as well as rail replacement buses will keep passengers moving, however, over 17 and 18 June, with additional work in Huddersfield being programmed, all services between Huddersfield and Leeds will be replaced by buses.

Sarah Thompson, sponsor on the TRU programme, said: ” We’re really excited to start the next phase of upgrades at Morley which take us one step closer to a fully accessible station.”

“However, for us to safely complete these upgrades, we do need to stop trains from running via their usual route, so I’d urge anybody travelling between 17-25 June to check ahead and plan their journey”.

Chris Nutton, major projects director for TransPennine Express – last month taken under government control – said: “As major upgrade work takes place for Morley station, there will some service alterations for TransPennine Express services. Customers are advised to allow for additional time to travel and to check carefully for the latest service alterations before they travel.

“Updates will also be available on our social media channels. In addition, extra support will be available for customers from customer delivery managers who will be on hand to assist customers with their journeys.”