Media centre

Monday 31 Mar 2014

More trains and more seats as Network Rail / South West Trains Alliance kicks off five-year £1.2bn programme in South West

Region & Route:

| Southern: Wessex

| Southern

Passengers in Hampshire, Surrey, Berkshire and south west London can look forward to more trains, more seats and improved stations as five years of massive investment in the rail network connecting London Waterloo and the South West begins tomorrow (Tuesday).

Driven by a huge growth in demand, which has seen a 50 per cent increase in passengers over the past 10 years, the Network Rail/South West Trains Alliance is investing more than £1.2bn in the rail network connecting Waterloo to Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire and beyond 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.

Increasing capacity into Waterloo station is the Alliance’s focus over the next five years, creating space for more trains, and more room for passengers travelling to and from Britain’s busiest station. This work will include lengthening the remaining eight-car platforms at the terminus and bringing the former international terminal back into use.

Managing director of the Alliance, Tim Shoveller, said: “The growth we are managing now is phenomenal - more than 95m passengers at Waterloo with us every year –there is a clear need to improve the railway in the area.

“Improving Waterloo is a key part of our strategic plan and it will benefit passengers across our network, not just in London. In the next five years we are delivering longer trains between Reading, Ascot and Waterloo, 10-car trains throughout our suburban network.To do this, we need to upgrade the power supply and extend a number of platforms to cope with the extra demand. We also will run additional capacity on some of our main line routes.

“We are also working on plans to improve the resilience of the railway to extreme weather and renewing our focus on safety. While we are the safest railway of our size in Europe, we are not 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 and we are committed to delivering a better, safer, more reliable railway for them.”

Along with longer trains and platforms, the Network Rail/South West Trains Alliance will begin the process of bringing control of the network into a new £50m purpose-built route operating centre in Basingstoke, replacing old signalling systems and offering a more reliable railway with better real-time information for passengers. In addition, a comprehensive renewals programme will continue to upgrade and improve the infrastructure of the railway.