Watford Junction station will be closed to passenger trains for extended periods next year - including two weeks in August 2014 - as an £81 million rail improvement project gets under way.

Network Rail announced this morning that major works will begin on the West Coast Main Line at Watford in May and continue in spells through to April 2015.

During the project, passenger trains will be unable to use a 12-mile section of the line around Watford Junction station and alternative arrangements will be made for passengers.

Dyan Crowther, Network Rail route managing director, said: “This scheme represents significant investment in the southern end of the West Coast Main Line to improve punctuality and make the railway more reliable.

"This line has seen tremendous growth in traffic and passengers over the last five years with the section at Watford being one of the most intensively used, high-speed sections of track in the UK.

"This work is absolutely essential to maintain the punctuality that passengers and our freight customers rightly expect."

Network Rail, which operates the UK’s railways, said it would have usually carried out such a project over a number of weekends, which would require train services to be replaced with alternative transport.

But it decided to complete the Watford project in more concentrated periods as the project would have required 54 complete weekend closures of Watford Junction.

The current schedule has works taking place from May 3 to 5, August 8 to 25, December 25 to 29, February (2015) 14 to 22, and April 3 to 6.

Dyan Crowther continued: “There is never a good time to carry out major work on such a busy route.

"However, after careful discussion with the train operators and industry partners, it became apparent that carrying out this vital investment over five longer closures between May 2014 and Easter 2015 when fewer people travel would, overall, cause less disruption.”

During the project, the signalling at Watford will be upgraded alongside new junctions and track to provide more flexibility for train services and reliability.

The planned work at Watford comes in addition to the £40m of investment announced by Network Rail last month to improve the southern end of the West Coast Main Line through works aimed at tackling the most common cause of delay.

Network Rail said it was also investigating the feasibility of increasing the speed of fast lines through Watford to 125mph, from the current 80mph.