OREANDA-NEWS. The West Coast main line fully reopened at Leighton Buzzard at 4am today (5 February) after engineers successfully repaired a bank slip in six days.

Network Rail’s orange army has worked round-the-clock since last weekend, carrying out extensive repairs to the embankment after it slipped on Saturday 30 January. Trains can now run on all four tracks through the Leighton Buzzard area and the embankment has not just been repaired but also future-proofed to minimise the chances of further slips.

Because of its location, a temporary access road had to be built across nearby fields before 2,200 tonnes of stone and materials could be delivered to fix the slip. Engineers continued to work through last night so the railway could reopen for the first train this morning.

Mark Killick, area director for Network Rail, said: “Passengers can once again rely on a full timetable through Leighton Buzzard after the bank slip was successfully repaired. I am really proud of the way the team has performed over the past week and our focus from the very start has been to get a full service back up and running for passengers as quickly as possible.

“This has been a hugely challenging task made even more difficult by its location. I would like to thank passengers for their patience while the repairs have taken place”

London Midland’s head of West Coast Services, Alan Giles, said: “Keeping our passengers informed has been our priority throughout the disruption. People have understood that the landslip could not have been anticipated and everyone has worked hard to minimise the impact on our passengers.”

About Network Rail

Network Rail owns, manages and develops Britain’s railway – the 20,000 miles of track, 40,000 bridges and viaducts, and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations (the largest of which we also run). In partnership with train operators we help people take more than 1.6bn journeys by rail every year - double the number of 1996 - and move hundreds of millions of tonnes of freight, saving almost 8m lorry journeys. We’re investing ?38bn in the railway by 2019 to deliver more frequent, more reliable, safer services and brighter and better stations.