Check before you travel in South East London this Easter as engineering work goes ahead in Hither Green area: Hither Green

Wednesday 8 Apr 2020

Check before you travel in South East London this Easter as engineering work goes ahead in Hither Green area

Region & Route:
Southern

Easter Bank Holiday engineering work is taking place on lines around Hither Green in South East London, to improve rail services in the region, meaning trains will be diverted or replaced by buses for four days. 

With the COVID-19 emergency, passengers are advised to only travel if absolutely necessary. However, bus replacement services for people who cannot work from home will run between Lewisham, Orpington, Bromley North and Sidcup from Friday 10 April, until Monday, 13 April, with trains running as normal on Tuesday.

Work being undertaken this Easter includes station improvement work, signalling resilience work in the Lewisham area and the installation of electrical safety equipment to improve the efficiency of our engineering work in the area.

Unfortunately, Network Rail and its partners have had to scale back part of Easter’s planned engineering to fit in with Public Health England advice in the light of the COVID-19 emergency.

Because staff cannot work closely together, many parts of the work to switch on new signalling would have taken up to double the length of time previously expected.

Network Rail’s route director for Kent, Fiona Taylor, said: " We could not have completed the commissioning - switching on - of the new signalling system, in the time available, but we will use the four days to do as much work as possible to minimise future disruption to passengers.

“We are working with Southeastern and our suppliers to replan the commissioning as soon as we can, so that passengers can enjoy the benefits of the new signalling on top of the work we are still doing this weekend.

“We know for those who rely on the railway there is never a good time to close lines and encourage those who do need to travel to plan ahead. Thank you for your patience while we work to keep the country moving through this crisis.”

Southeastern Train Services Director, Scott Brightwell, said:  “During the current health crisis our staff have been working around the clock to ensure that vital train services keep running for essential travel, especially for people who cannot work from home, such as those in the NHS.

“Unfortunately, we need to reduce some services over Easter so that important improvement work can continue. We have made arrangements for tickets to be accepted via alternative routes and will provide buses between some stations. I hope that the amended timetable doesn’t cause too much disruption for those people that still do have to travel into work.”

Notes to Editors

Travel advice

 We are encouraging people to please follow the Government’s advice, and only travel if your journey is absolutely necessary.

For essential journeys, a bus replacement service will run from Friday 10 April to Monday 13th April.

Tickets will be accepted on all reasonable routes, on London Underground between Victoria, Charing Cross, Embankment, Waterloo, Southwark, Embankment, & London Bridge and London bus routes 126, 261 & 314 between Bromley North and Grove Park. Social distancing measures will be implemented on replacement bus services.

More information can be found at:

Southeastern

The following stations will be affected by the Hither Green engineering work over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend:

  • Albany Park
  • Bexley
  • Bromley North
  • Chislehurst
  • Crayford
  • Dartford
  • Elmstead Woods
  • Grove Park
  • Hither Green
  • Lee
  • Lewisham
  • Mottingham
  • New Eltham
  • Orpington
  • Petts Wood
  • Sidcup
  • Sundridge Park

The railway industry is working to support efforts to delay the spread of coronavirus and is running a reduced timetable for people who cannot work from home. 

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 - Chris Denham
Senior media relations manager
020 3357 7969
07515 626530
chris.denham@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

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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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