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Monday 31 Mar 2014

More trains and more seats as Network Rail kicks off five-year £2.3bn programme in South East

Region & Route:

| Southern

Passengers in Kent, Sussex and south London can look forward to more trains, more seats and improved stations as five years of massive investment in the county’s railways begins this week.

Driven by a huge growth in demand, which has seen a 50 per cent increase in passengers over the past 10 years, Network Rail is investing more than 2.3bn in the rail network connecting Kent and Sussex with London between now and 2019. This will form part of a wider programme to deliver an extra 115,000 seats a day into the capital by 2019 – an increase of 20 per cent.

For many commuters, the £6bn Thameslink programme will untangle the routes to and through London Bridge, meaning more trains and better reliability on one of the most congested railways in the country. Once the revamp of London Bridge station is complete in 2018, some trains which currently terminate at Charing Cross or Cannon Street will be able to continue through central London, reducing the need for commuters to change from train to Tube at the busiest times of day.

Also from 2018, the completed Crossrail project will provide an interchange at Abbey Wood in south-east London, offering new and faster connections into central London, Heathrow and the Thames Valley for passengers from the Medway Towns and Dartford.

Network Rail’s managing director for South East route, Dave Ward, said: “The growth we are managing now is phenomenal – Southeastern and Southern already run more than 2,000 trains each every day – and this has given us a real opportunity to improve the railway in Kent, Sussex and south-east London.

“We have a great responsibility to passengers who rely on us and their operators to carry them home safely and reliably every day, and we can only continue to do that by improving existing routes and upgrading our technology. We are also working on plans to improve the resilience of the railway in Kent and Sussex to extreme weather – something passengers have become well aware of the need for this year.

“And we are renewing our focus on safety. While we are the safest railway of our size in Europe, we cannot be complacent – particularly when it comes to level crossings and the safety of our workforce.

“The next five years will make a huge difference to everyone who travels by train in Kent and the south east, and we are committed to delivering a better, more reliable railway for them.”

Kent

Passengers further afield in Kent will also see some major changes, including the £147m project to replace signalling on the railway around the Medway Towns. This will include the construction of a new Rochester station, allowing 12-car trains to call there for the first time, and a new platform at Rainham. Other investment programmes in the next five years include a £10m linespeed improvement scheme to the Ramsgate to Ashford route, a new station for Kidbrooke in south east London, upgrades of the railway power supply to cope with extra and more powerful trains, along with the continuing programme to improve stations, including Maidstone East and Strood.

Sussex

Passengers in Sussex will also see some major changes, including the construction of an extra platform at Redhill, to increase capacity at the station, improving signalling on the Brighton Main Line near Balcombe to increase flexibility, and platform lengthening on the line to Uckfield to allow longer trains to run. Other investment programmes for the county in the next five years will include improving the concourse at Victoria station to give passengers more room, upgrading the power supply to improve reliability and allow for increased services, bringing 50 per cent of all signalling in the county into a new control centre, and a linespeed improvement scheme from Hastings to Ashford. There will also be a rolling programme of station upgrades and improvements.