£7m investment project kicks off in Wimbledon - please check before you travel!

Monday 29 Dec 2014

£7m investment project kicks off in Wimbledon - please check before you travel!

Region & Route:: | Southern: Wessex; | Southern

Work has begun on a £7m project to rebuild a crucial railway junction in Wimbledon, which will affect journeys through the station for the next 6 weekends.

The project is replacing a dozen sets of points - which allow trains to cross between different lines - to the west of Wimbledon station. It will improve reliability for hundreds of thousands of passengers each day on one of the busiest parts of Britain’s rail network.

Work began at Christmas and will continue every weekend until mid-February, with no South West Trains able to call at, or run through, Wimbledon on those weekends and an amended timetable in place at many stations.

John Halsall, infrastructure director for the Network Rail-South West Alliance, said: “We have scheduled the work in order to minimise disruption to passengers as much as possible but if you, friends or family are travelling during these times, I strongly suggest checking travel details first.

“This work will have a significant impact on our services and we apologise for the inconvenience caused but they are a vital part of improving our network and our service to passengers.”

For more information and to plan your journey during these times, please visit: www.southwesttrains.co.uk/wimbledonengineering.aspx

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Notes to editors

During the following dates, there will be no South West Trains between Clapham Junction and Surbiton, or between Clapham Junction and Kingston via Wimbledon:

January 3rd and 4th

January 10th and 11th

January 17th and 18th

January 24th and 25th

January 31st and February 1st

February 14 and 15th

Thameslink services will continue to run to Wimbledon from London via Tooting during the affected weekends, however there will be no services from Wimbledon to Sutton via St Helier.

London Underground services are not affected by the work.

The four tracks through the affected junction carry trains to and from Surbiton, Woking and the West. A further two tracks carry Thameslink services through Wimbledon Chase and St Helier to Sutton.

Improvement work at London Bridge over Christmas and throughout 2015 may also affect passenger’s journeys. Find out more on ThameslinkProgramme.co.uk

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - South East route
020 3357 7969
southeastroutecomms@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

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