Railtrack begins repairs blitz

Engineers are trying to get 100 speed restrictions lifted

Railtrack has begun its largest rail-replacement programme since the Hatfield crash in October - with 8,000 engineers working at more than 60 sites.

They will be on duty around the clock over the Christmas period, in an attempt to get about 100 speed restrictions lifted.

The Christmas works programme began as soon as the last train ran on Sunday night and will last until 27 December.

Christmas traffic was not as severe as usual

The work follows a busy weekend for coach companies as travellers tried to avoid trains hampered by delays and cancellations due to flooding.

Thick fog and ice created difficult road conditions but motoring groups said it had been one of the quietest Christmas build-ups in recent years.

The Railtrack programme will replace track and sets of points to help towards removing or easing about 100 of the 463 speed restrictions still in place in the wake of the Hatfield tragedy.

Flooding forced some train cancellations on Saturday with Virgin Trains stopping 14 of the services on its West Coast mainline route between London Euston and the Midlands due to technical problems with seven of its trains.

Fewer services

Rail users had been warned that some services were fully booked and about 1,800 train services were running on Sunday, around 600 less than normal.

A spokesman for Railtrack Scotland, Rory McCloud, said services should be almost back to normal by the end of next month after the engineering repairs operation.

Many travellers put their trust in coaches for their Christmas travel, with National Express reporting an increase of 15-20% in passenger numbers compared with this time last year.

Hatfield crash prompted track repair crackdown

The Managing Director of Victoria coach station in London, Warwick Hillman, said Saturday had been the "busiest day in 10 years".

Other travellers took to the skies, with air companies reporting a rise in business.

Heathrow airport predicts its busiest day of the festive period is yet to come.

A spokeswoman said some 187,000 people are expected to use the airport on 2 January.

All non-essential roadworks were suspended for Christmas to allow traffic to flow more freely.

But one person died and seven people were injured in an eight-car pile-up involving a petrol tanker on the A303 at Mapperton near Wincanton, Somerset.

The person who died and one of the seriously injured were in a car which was directly in collision with the BP tanker.