By Mick McGann BBC News Online

Widespread disruption on the railways has almost become as fixed a feature of the British bank holiday as bad weather, but is it inevitable?

Maintenance of the railway network came under intense scrutiny following the Hatfield crash

Network Rail says it is all part of its drive to deliver a more reliable network and "real and tangible improvements" to customers.

A spokeswoman said: "We have taken on board the findings of the Rail Passengers Council's research.

"This suggests passengers prefer a short hit of engineering rather than it being dragged out over many months."

There is another good reason why Network Rail has decided to do the work now - twice as many people use the trains at peak commuter travel periods compared to peak holiday travel time.

Things vary from country to country, but it would be very unusual to see anything as dramatic as what we are going to see here over the weekend Murray Hughes, editor of Railway Gazette International

The work being undertaken does appear to warrant the label "essential maintenance".

Thousands of workers will be laying new tracks, upgrading signalling systems, installing new sets of points, as well as carrying out repairs to tunnels, viaducts, level crossings, stations and overhead line equipment.

But such work has to be carried out in other countries, yet few will ever feel the need to close down large sections of the network for several days at a time.

As editor of Railway Gazette International, Murray Hughes explains, there are features of the modern British rail system which make it particularly cumbersome.

He said: "Things vary from country to country, but it would be very unusual to see anything as dramatic as what we are going to see here over the weekend.

"They tend to avoid the extensive use of blockages and closures of lines and they make much better use of the time which is allocated to allow contractors to carry out work.

'Privatisation'

"In Japan they are a lot more efficient than we are here. Every thing is timed down to the minute.

"In Britain it is very difficult because of the structure of the railway following privatisation.

"You have Network Rail who own the infrastructure, then there's all the separate train companies, contractors and sub contractors.

"You have to make sure all these different organisation are working together to make sure engineering trains arrive at the right time and place."

Much of the maintenance work in Britain is carried out at night, but this approach has been criticised as wasteful because of the difficulties of working in the dark and it is not common abroad.

Safety regulations

In France, where the railway is nationalised, they manage to maintain the network by closing lines in the middle of the day, when demand is at its lowest and engineers can take advantage of the daylight.

Another thing which can hold up maintenance work in the UK is our incredibly strict safety regulations.

In many countries trains will run in one direction while work is carried out on neighbouring tracks, but in the UK the whole section of line is closed.

Mr Hughes said: "The Health and Safety Executive is partly responsible for that state of affairs, although obviously companies are very concerned about being sued in the event of an accident."