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Total Closures of the M6 in Cumbria for two weekends in January 2026

Posted by (Lake District, England) on

To enable the replacement of a rail bridge at Clifton (south of Penrith) the M6 motorway will be closed in both directions between Junction 38 (Tebay) and Junction 40 (Penrith) from 8pm on Friday 2 January to 5am on Monday 5 January, and again the following weekend 9 to 12 January.

During the closures northbound traffic will be diverted onto the A6 via Shap, and southbound traffic onto the A66/A685 via Kirkby Stephen.

Congestion and delays on the diversionary routes are inevitable. In particular the southbound route may become quite difficult through Kirkby Stephen.

Posted by
1728 posts

Stuart - I assume that this is also associated with the closure of the west coast mainline trains as well? If so, this is the opportunity for people to try the alternative route for Avanti trains between Preston and Carlisle which will be a diversion along the stunning Settle to Carlisle line.

Posted by
10931 posts

Yes, it's part and parcel of the same work.

The railway closure is in several parts- initially it is Wigan to Lockerbie (due to separate work between Carlisle and Gretna junction), then later Preston to Carlisle.

So in the opening stages the diversions are Carlisle to Wigan (not via Preston). And on New Years Day only there is a unique Avanti Wrexham to Carlisle train at 0820 calling at Chester, Crewe (reverse), Warrington and Wigan only.

The rail diversions are in part because the motorway closure means that it will be too hard to run replacement buses through from Preston to Carlisle.

The diversions via the Settle and Carlisle then the Ribble Valley lines are being run using Avanti's brand new Evero trains (being taken off the Birmingham, Liverpool and North Wales routes).

The

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