Network Rail to carry out emergency work to railway bridge to allow Gainsborough road to reopen

Friday 8 Mar 2024

Network Rail to carry out emergency work to railway bridge to allow Gainsborough road to reopen

Region & Route:Eastern [1]| Eastern: East Midlands [2]

Network Rail engineers will begin emergency work to repair a damaged railway bridge tomorrow which has caused the A159 between Morton and Blyton, near Gainsborough, to close. The road has been closed since mid-February following the underside of the bridge being struck by a vehicle, causing structural damage. Network Rail teams installed temporary heavy-duty props which allowed the railway line above, which was being used as a major freight diversion due to planned work in the Keadby area, to remain operational.

Plans have been agreed to repair the damage to the bridge, however work can only be carried out when no trains are running. Repairs are set to be carried out on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 March, with some follow up work carried out throughout the remainder of next week. The road is scheduled to reopen on Saturday 16 March.

Ben Simpson, Scheme Project Manager for Network Rail, said: "Our teams will be working around the clock for the next week to carry out these vital repairs and allow us to reopen the A159 to all vehicular traffic. "Safety is Network Rail's top priority and this closure, and the temporary equipment we have installed, have been necessary to protect passengers, train crew, freight users, and motorists alike. "We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and want to thank motorists for their patience and understanding, as well as Lincolnshire County Council for their cooperation."

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track [3], 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts [4] and the thousands of signals [5], level crossings and stations.

We run 20 of the UK's largest stations [6] while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies [7]. Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day.

Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway [8], so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan [9], to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

References

^ Eastern (www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk)
^ Eastern: East Midlands (www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk)
^ track (www.networkrail.co.uk)
^ bridges, tunnels and viaducts (www.networkrail.co.uk)
^ signals (www.networkrail.co.uk)
^ stations (www.networkrail.co.uk)
^ train operating companies (www.networkrail.co.uk)
^ a safe and reliable railway (www.networkrail.co.uk)
^ multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan (www.networkrail.co.uk)
^ @networkrail (twitter.com)
^ http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/ (www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk)