Network Rail closes Rugby to Stafford line on two October weekends for £400m West Coast renewals

Network Rail will close the West Coast Main Line between Stafford and Rugby via Nuneaton on the weekends of 10 to 11 and 17 to 18 October 2026 to renew track, with HS2 Ltd working on the Euston approaches at the same time.

The infrastructure owner said the Rugby to Stafford renewals form part of a long-term programme to improve reliability on what it called Britain's busiest mixed-use railway, and sit within a wider £400m investment to strengthen the route.

No trains will run through the Trent Valley section on either weekend. Avanti West Coast and London Northwestern Railway will operate reduced services to amended timetables, Network Rail said.

Gary Walsh, Network Rail's West Coast South route director, said: "Renewing ageing track now will help deliver a more reliable railway with fewer delays for years to come."

Diversions and buses

Avanti West Coast will divert three trains an hour via the West Midlands during both closures, according to Network Rail. Services between London Euston and Birmingham New Street will be extended to Liverpool Lime Street every two hours.

Trent Valley stations between Rugby and Stafford will be served by rail replacement buses.

Chris Liptrot, operations director at Avanti West Coast, said: "While Network Rail carry out this essential work, we'll be operating a reduced timetable and journeys to and from London Euston will take longer."

HS2 work at Euston

Network Rail said HS2 construction activity would take place outside London Euston over the same weekends as preparations continue for the high speed railway.

HS2 Ltd said it would work overnight from 9pm on Saturday 10 October to 9am on Sunday 11 October in the Euston Approaches and would continue that weekend pattern through October. On Saturday 10 October it would complete concrete pours in Camden Cutting South, the company said.

The weekend works also include protective works to Network Rail tracks ahead of the tunnel boring machine arriving in Euston, according to HS2 Ltd. Its update on overnight and weekend works in the Euston Approaches covers 3 October to 1 November 2026.

Separately, HS2 Ltd's Camden pages list construction of Hampstead Road Bridge at Euston as starting on 17 October 2026, the first day of the second closure weekend.

The wider programme

Network Rail said it is investing £400m in West Coast Main Line upgrades from now until March 2029, the end of the current control period. The programme includes what Network Rail describes as the biggest upgrade to the line's northern section in half a century.

Parts of the line are showing their age and cannot cope with modern demand, Network Rail said. It maintains 700 miles of track on the route, which has 64 stations and carries about 2,000 passenger trains and 15,000 tonnes of goods every day.

The October closures follow a series of earlier Trent Valley phases between Rugby and Stafford announced by Network Rail.

In a release issued on 24 January 2025, Network Rail set out the renewal of over 400 metres of track between Rugby and Tamworth/Rugeley Trent Valley during a January Sunday closure of all lines, and over 600 metres of track upgrades between Nuneaton and Stafford in February 2025, with trains diverted via Birmingham.

Network Rail also announced a nine-day phase from Saturday 24 May to Sunday 1 June, with no direct trains on the section. Engineers would install 2,340 tonnes of new ballast, 868 sleepers and over 500 metres of new rail near Atherstone, it said.

That phase was also to begin stabilising a cutting between Great Haywood and Cannock Chase measuring 330 metres long and 15 metres high, with 264 rock nails and meshing planned to catch and contain debris. Network Rail said a bridge carrying the line over the River Anker near Tamworth would be waterproofed during the same period.

What happens next

Network Rail and the train operators said they would divert services where possible, provide rail replacement buses where rail connections are unavailable and publish journey information through National Rail Enquiries.

The second closure weekend runs from Saturday 17 to Sunday 18 October 2026, and HS2 Ltd's overnight and weekend works in the Euston Approaches are listed to continue until 1 November 2026.