East Midlands Trains has today confirmed that it will be returning to its full timetable from 08:00am on Saturday 8 March. This follows work by Network Rail to complete repairs after the extreme wet weather caused a hillslide damaging the railway between Sheffield and Chesterfield. Work on site has progressed better than expected and the work has been completed around three weeks ahead of schedule.

Since Tuesday 18 February, a revised service has been in operation after one of the two tracks near Unstone was closed. Network Rail has now confirmed that the line is expected to re-open on Saturday 8 March, when East Midlands Trains will resume its normal timetable.

Network Rail engineers are confident the work to stabilise the hill side can be completed without further changes to the timetable. The track, which will be treated by the high output ballast cleaner, will be carefully monitored. If any follow-up work is required, Network Rail will notify customers in advance and schedule the work to minimise disruption.

Neil Micklethwaite, Customer Service and Commercial Director for East Midlands Trains, said: “We would like to thank passengers for their patience over the past two weeks whilst these repair works have taken place. We have worked hard to try and minimise the disruption for our passengers, but nonetheless, we know that some passengers will have experienced changes to their journeys with us and we apologise for that.

“We would like to express our thanks also to the Network Rail team for their hard work in completing these major repairs and allowing us to re-open the line ahead of schedule. We are very pleased to be able to reinstate our normal two services an hour from Sheffield to London from Saturday morning”