Network Rail starts two weekends of East Coast Main Line renewals in North Yorkshire

Network Rail will renew almost 2.6km of track, replace points at three locations and upgrade overhead line equipment on the East Coast Main Line in North Yorkshire over the weekends of 24-25 October and 31 October-1 November.

Buses will replace trains between Doncaster/Leeds and Darlington on both weekends, Network Rail said in a reminder published on 20 October. The infrastructure owner first announced the programme on 25 September.

Gunnar Lindahl, joint operations director for Network Rail and LNER, said: "Engineers will be carrying out a major programme of improvements across North Yorkshire to make the East Coast Main Line more reliable for passengers and freight customers."

The work

Engineers will renew and replace points at Tollerton North, Colton Junction and Northallerton. The track renewals, which Network Rail put at almost 2.6km in total, will replace rails, sleepers and ballast between York, Colton Junction, Holgate Junction and Skelton Junction.

Teams will also renew 300 metres of drainage near Chapman's Bridge, near Shipton, and upgrade overhead line equipment between York and Colton Junction and across the platforms at York station. Vegetation management will take place between Tollerton and Thirsk, and platform 2 at York station will receive surface works.

Network Rail said the upgrades would improve the resilience and performance of the railway for passengers and freight.

Church Fenton closure

Separately, the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) will take a nine-day possession between Saturday 24 October and Sunday 1 November, including weekdays, to install a new road bridge over the line at Church Fenton and overhead line equipment. No trains will run between York and Leeds during that period, with replacement buses operating.

TRU is a £10.7bn programme covering 70 miles of railway. Network Rail said that in August 2025, 25% of the route was electrified between York and Church Fenton. Once complete, the programme aims to halve the time lost to delays, Network Rail said.

Earlier phase

The October weekends follow a package of work on the York to Northallerton stretch over the two May bank holiday weekends in 2026. That phase, announced in March, covered renewal of three sets of points at Tollerton, drainage renewal along 955 metres of line at Chapman's Bridge and landslip mitigation to stabilise embankments in the Tollerton area.

Jason Parrish, Network Rail head of planning, said at the time: "These improvements are an important investment in the long‑term resilience of the East Coast Main Line."

Service changes

LNER trains between London King's Cross and Doncaster, and between Darlington and Edinburgh, will run a reduced service of two trains per hour, with one train per hour between Northallerton and Edinburgh. No Lumo trains will run between London King's Cross and Edinburgh, and Grand Central will not operate between London King's Cross and Sunderland.

CrossCountry buses will run directly between Leeds and Darlington without calling at other stations. A spokesperson for the train operating companies said many services would be amended and some journeys may take longer or involve a rail replacement bus.

The York to Leeds line is due to reopen after the Church Fenton possession ends on Sunday 1 November.