BOLTON train station is set to close at weekends for five months.

It will be an inconvenience to say the least.

But the closure is sadly very necessary – because it is to make sure that the Farnworth Tunnel is fit for purpose in time for electrification.

Moses Gate, Farnworth and Kearsley stations will also be closed completely during the works.

During the work there will be eight fewer trains running through Bolton every hour on weekdays. The closures will happen from May 2 to October 4.

While Bolton station is closed, Northern Rail will provide rail replacement buses at the weekends, which will run between Manchester, Preston, Blackburn and Wigan, via Bolton.

One of the two tunnels which makes up Farnworth Tunnel will be closed for five months while it is filled with concrete and expanded out into a larger tunnel, using a specially-built tunnel boring machine.

When the new tunnel is complete, it will be fitted out with new tracks, signalling and electrification equipment that will power and operate new electric trains from the end of 2016.

This will mean faster, modern, more reliable trains for the long neglected North West.

In the short term, however, it will heap further misery on passengers.

Our morning rush hour trains are already overcrowded.

A campaign by this newspaper brought some relief in the form of a promise from the Prime Minister that more carriages would be dispatched to ease the problem for Bolton’s fed-up commuters.

We have been told 200 extra seats will be made available – but these are yet to materialise.

Rest assured we will be keeping up the pressure on transport bosses to make sure we get these seats.

The North West’s trains are shockingly poor.

The difference between electric and diesel is not only speed – it is the carriages themselves. Many of the trains are just horrible to travel on. They are dirty and downtrodden and we just put up with it.

If the decision makers in Westminster had to travel on them every day I am sure the issue would be solved in a jiffy.

An election is coming and Bolton’s trains could be a key decider – especially in Bolton West where there were just a few dozen votes in it last time we went to the polls.

We need to use this election to our advantage and heap the pressure on both Labour and the Conservatives to ensure that both parties promise improvements.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next three months.

The Prime Minister has already written to The Bolton News twice – and visited us once – to talk transport.

But we are yet to see more carriages. Will we see any improvements before May? Watch this space.