Manchester Piccadilly to Close for Nine Days in February 2026

Manchester Piccadilly will close for nine days in February for a “once-in-a-generation” upgrade.

Network Rail will invest £7.9 million into the project, in order to improve tracks, points and signalling systems which date back to the 1980s.

Teams will replace 11 sets of points, 9,000 metres of cabling and old timber sleepers with modern concrete ones.

It says this investment will provide a “huge boost to reliability' of services once completed. In 2024, there were 35 faults on this stretch of track.

The works will be undertaken between Saturday 14 February and Sunday 22 February, during which no trains from the south or east of Manchester will run into Manchester Piccadilly. This falls during the school half-term break in order to reduce disruption.

Some trains from the North will also be heavily impacted, in addition to services to Manchester Airport. Services will terminate at other stations instead, including Stockport.

Services, including from London Euston, will terminate elsewhere during this nine-day period. Abhijit Tembhekar @ Wikimedia Commons.

Network Rail and other transport operators are in the process of developing alternative travel plans to minimise disruption, which will be released in the coming months.

During the upgrade, the station concourse will remain open, while staff will be on hand to direct passengers to alternative transport.

Manchester Piccadilly is the busiest station in the North West, with 38 million passengers making journeys through the station in 2024. Each day, approximately 900 services run through, from or to Manchester Piccadilly.