Tamping trains to shut Mossley Hill approach to Liverpool Lime Street on 8 November

Network Rail will send specialist tamping trains into the Mossley Hill area of Liverpool on Sunday 8 November, closing a key approach to Lime Street and leaving very few trains serving the station that day.

The infrastructure owner said the work would strengthen and secure the ballast, the stone foundation beneath the track, on the route into what it describes as the North West's second busiest station.

No passenger services can run through Mossley Hill while the machines are working, so most overground operators will terminate at other stations, Network Rail said in a release on 2 November.

Paul Owen, Network Rail's area director for Liverpool, said: "We know there is never an ideal time to close the railway, so I'd like to thank people for their patience while we make these important improvements at Mossley Hill."

The machines

Network Rail describes tamping as large machines raising the track, vibrating the ballast underneath and compacting the individual stones together.

Its track maintenance guidance says crews use tampers and ballast regulators to redistribute ballast and compact it beneath the sleepers so the track keeps its geometry. The same page says a line speed restriction of about 50mph usually applies for a week after track renewal to let the ballast settle.

Network Rail maintains and renews 20,000 miles of track across Britain and also runs a High Output Track Renewal System and Ballast Cleaning System for overnight track and ballast work, according to the page.

The release did not say how many tamping machines will be deployed at Mossley Hill, how much track will be treated or what the work will cost.

Services on the day

Network Rail set out how each operator will be affected on 8 November:

• Avanti West Coast trains to and from Lime Street will run to an amended timetable and divert via Earlestown.
• East Midlands Railway will run no trains between Liverpool Lime Street and Sheffield.
• London Northwestern Railway trains will start and terminate at Liverpool South Parkway.
• Northern trains will run between Hunts Cross and Manchester Oxford Road, with a replacement bus between Lime Street and Hunts Cross.
• TransPennine Express services between Lime Street and Cleethorpes will start and terminate at Warrington Central, with a replacement bus to Lime Street.

Transport for Wales passengers are directed to nationalrail.co.uk. When Network Rail first announced the work on 18 September it said details for that operator would be confirmed later.

Avanti West Coast and London Northwestern Railway services will also be affected by separate engineering work between Stafford and Crewe on the same day, Network Rail said.

Passengers will still be able to reach Liverpool city centre by rail replacement bus or on the Merseyrail network, and extra staff will be at Lime Street. Owen urged passengers to check National Rail Enquiries in advance to understand how services will be affected on Sunday.

Merseyrail tunnel work

The tamping follows directly on from a separate Network Rail programme on the Merseyrail network. On 10 August Network Rail announced a 26-day closure, from Sunday 11 October to Friday 6 November, to waterproof and strengthen four underground tunnels that bring Northern line trains into Liverpool city centre from the south.

The £3.5m scheme is intended to stop water entering the tunnels and causing problems with the third-rail electricity supply, and power control systems are being modernised across the Northern and Wirral lines at the same time, Network Rail said. On 27 October it reported being 17 days into the near four-week closure.

Merseyrail's service page says replacement buses are running between Hunts Cross and Moorfields throughout the tunnel works.

Network Rail says normal Merseyrail Northern line services are due to resume on Saturday 7 November, the day before the tamping trains move into Mossley Hill.