Wednesday 29 Jan 2020
Bexleyheath line closure - have you planned ahead?
- Region & Route:
- Southern
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Passengers in South East London are reminded to plan their journeys ahead of a nine-day closure of the Bexleyheath line between Blackheath and Barnehurst from Saturday 15 February to Sunday 23 February 2020.
After four landslips in the last decade, Network Rail is closing the line over the half term as part of a major project to protect passengers from further disruption.
There will be no trains on the Bexleyheath line for nine days but Southeastern is running extra services and longer trains on the Woolwich and Sidcup lines. They are expected to be busier than usual and some services will run to a different timetable. The operator is advising passengers to avoid peak time travel if possible.
A replacement bus service will also be in place for Bexleyheath line passengers and tickets accepted on other reasonable routes, London Underground, the DLR and London Buses.
Bus replacement and alternative train times are now available and passengers can plan ahead at www.networkrail.co.uk/Bexleyheathline or direct with Southeastern.
Dan Athol, Programme Director, Network Rail, said: “The last landslip on the Bexleyheath line, in February last year, closed the line for seven days. We want to provide a safe, permanent solution to prevent further disruption to passengers. We’re also making the most of the closures by bringing forward more work to give passengers the benefits quicker and prevent future engineering closures.
“We know there is never a good time to close the railway and have been working hard with Southeastern colleagues to make people aware of the closure and alternative travel options.
“If you do need to travel, please don’t get caught out. You can now your journey at www.networkrail.co.uk/bexleyheathline.”
Southeastern Train Services Director, Scott Brightwell, said: “This is vital improvement work that needs to be done to help prevent future landslips but I do want to apologise to any of our passengers that are affected by the line closure.
“To get everyone where they need to be, we are putting on extra trains with more carriages on the alternative routes through Sidcup and Woolwich. The bus replacement services will run along the Bexleyheath line and also over to the alternative routes. Please check the Southeastern website for more information.”
During the closure, Network Rail and Southeastern are taking the opportunity to continue with a £700k station and track improvement programme.
The work includes:
- Deep cleaning of the stations, painting of booking halls and platform furniture, toilet facility improvements and clearing vegetation.
- Track maintenance to improve track quality and provide smoother rides from Blackheath Junction to Falconwood station.
- Refurbishment of Perry Street Fork Junction, where the Bexleyheath line meets the Greenwich line, to prevent faults and reduce delays.
- Signalling and power supply upgrades to reduce the risk of failures.
Notes to Editors
Over the next five years, Network Rail is investing a record £1.25bn to upgrade signalling, tracks, structures, embankments, stations and depots to give passengers in Kent and South East London better journeys, with fewer delays.
The investment will help address decades of underinvestment in the Kent network, replacing ageing and increasingly fault prone railway with new, more reliable equipment - supporting improving train performance and keeping people and trains on the move for generations to come.
Our plans
- Replace 429km of track, at a cost of over £201m.
- Spend £162m on new signalling equipment, reducing faults and delays for passengers.
- Spend £21.4m to improve safety at level crossings.
- Replace 560 switches and crossings, junctions where trains switch tracks, at a cost of £170m.
- Spend £170m on replacing or refurbishing our structures, including 100 underbridges, 12 overbridges, 23 footbridges and 1 tunnel.
- Strengthen 9 other structures, so they can carry more trains and more passengers at the same time.
- Renew 90km of fencing to prevent trespass at a cost of £2.1m.
- Clear overgrown vegetation across 51km of railway to prevent seasonal delays caused fallen leaves and trees.
- We’ll also be introducing traffic and incident management technology at our control centres. This will help our signallers manage the service more efficiently and recover from disruptive incidents more quickly.
Contact information
Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41
Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries
Journalists
Leonard Bennett
Leonard.Bennett@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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