Liverpool Lime Street Reopening September

Liverpool Lime Street’s reopening of train services in July a major milestone for the Great North Rail Project.

21:13 29 August 2018

Liverpool Lime Street has successfully reopened in July following an eight-week closure of Merseyside’s gateway station. The move was a major milestone for the Great North Rail Project and in transforming travel for the city, taking a history site into the future with digital technology and 4D modelling.

 

Sean Hyland, a senior project manager at Network Rail, said: “4D modelling in this way is not often used on railway projects but in a unique environment like ours, it’s proved invaluable.”

 

The multi-billion-pound scheme used virtual reality to carry out 4D modelling during preparations for the work, reducing the amount of time needed to track and its potential impact on train services. Almost 2,000m of track have been replaced while platforms were lengthened and redesigned to provide passengers travelling in and out the city with more seats.

 

Sean said: “The job itself is in a physically very challenging and demanding environment.”

 

“One of the things I’m most proud of is the integration of the works and the way we approached that in the form of having a specific dedicated blockade manager whose role has been chief works integrator. We had a time and space philosophy when we planned any major works - to separate contractors as best as possible in time and space. We had several contractors working and we made sure we, as best we could, kept them away from each other.

 

“The integration of what is a complex work site and project, to have done that and have handed the railway back early as we did, has to be one of the proudest things we’ve done.”