Passengers wishing to travel to Manchester Airport on Sunday, 9 September, will be transferred using public transport from Piccadilly station as isolator work starts on the ”15m ($30m) project.
Scheduled to open at the end of next year, the new platform will ease rail congestion at Manchester Airport, that sees around 350 trains a day use the north west gateway.
Lines will close from midnight on the Saturday until 5am on Monday, 10 September, with road transport moving passengers on First TransPennine Express and Northern Rail services to the airport.
As the rest of the construction moves forward, the station will remain open and train services will be largely unaffected, according to Network Rail.
The specific reason for the closure is to install an isolator allowing individual lines and platforms to continue operating, even if work is being carried out on one of the tracks.
”At the moment, if we need to do any work on the airport branch line that needs the overhead power to be turned off, it affects both tracks serving both platforms at the station,” said Network Rail route director, Peter Strachan.
”By installing this new equipment, in future we will be able to isolate individual lines or platforms, which means that trains can continue to run to/from the station.”
The next major piece of work on the project affecting both rail and road access to the airport will not be until February 2008, when the bridge carrying Outwood Lane over the railway lines is demolished and replaced with a wider structure to accommodate the third platform.