THE prospect of trains running over the Christmas period next year has been welcomed by a North Yorkshire MP.

John Grogan, who represents Selby district and Fulford, was speaking after the chief executive of Network Rail, Iain Coucher, revealed plans to slash the time it takes for engineering work to be completed.

Most major work on the railways is currently carried out on bank holidays, meaning stretches of the network have to be closed.

But closures will be significantly reduced in the future as Network Rail halves the time it takes to replace a set of points in trials from the traditional 54 hours to 27 hours.

Chief engineer Andrew McNaughton said new techniques would allow engineers to replace complex sets of points in shorter eight-hour sessions overnight.

"This will reduce disruption for passengers and drive down the costs of renewals," he said. "We're always striving for improvement, and this project will play a major part in reducing disruption, especially at weekends, while improving quality and reducing costs."

He said the project would introduce pre-assembled sets of points, complete with point operating equipment and heating systems, which can then be transported to site in large pre-assembled modules and quickly re-assembled on site.

The project will be phased in in three stages, each stage making incremental improvements in reducing time and costs.

Mr Grogan has been an outspoken critic of the "public transport desert" at Christmas.

In December, he tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons calling on Yorkshire passenger transport authorities to provide bus services on Boxing Day.

He welcomed the Network Rail developments, saying he would meet with train companies to discuss the possibility of running services over the festive period.

"I'm obviously very pleased at this," he said. "I'm absolutely delighted that the new chief executive of Network Rail has announced the possibility of trains running every day of the year.

"This really means filling in the gaps over the Christmas period, which at the moment has 56 hours of shutdown.

"The train companies have always said this was completely impossible to do because of closures of the tracks."

Mr Grogan revealed he was now calling for a meeting with the train operators and Mr Coucher to discuss increasing bank holiday operations. "This is a very big step forward in this campaign we're waging," he said.

A spokesman for York-based train company National Express East Coast said it was too early to tell whether they would be able to run more bank holiday services.

"We've not seen any firm plans from Network Rail yet," he said.

"Until we see their plans we can't really put any more meat on the bones."