Friday 1 Nov 2019
Network Rail gives Edenbridge station a makeover with platform refurbishment
- Region & Route:
- Southern
Network Rail has completed a £500,000 upgrade at Edenbridge station to improve safety for passengers in Kent.
A new platform surface has been installed, reducing the gap between train and platform for passengers, while providing increased safety for all users.
In addition to the resurfacing work, track maintenance machines have also used the time to update the railway track, keeping it smooth and correctly aligned. This will allow for a more comfortable journey for passengers and freight trains.
The refurbishment was completed earlier than projected and without any major disruption to passengers and local residents.
Located on Albion Way towards the north of the town, Edenbridge Station is on the route from London Bridge to Tonbridge via Croydon and Redhill and is one of two stations serving Edenbridge in Kent.
Ian Hanson, Stations Director for Network Rail, said: “At Network Rail, keeping people safe on and around the railway is at the heart of everything we do.
“We’re continually working on a programme of upgrades that will make stations safer and this is a great example of how we are investing to meet the needs of local communities.”
Patrick Clements, Head of Safety & Environment (Infrastructure & Facilities) at Govia Thameslink Railway said: “We very much welcome this investment in passenger safety. It reduces the risk of tripping when boarding or alighting, and also helps passengers who have mobility difficulties.
“We identified Edenbridge as one of several priority stations for this type of improvement and it is an excellent example of successful joint working between our safety team and Network Rail’s Southern Region.”
Station platforms can be open to the elements and every effort is made to keep them hazard-free, but regular footfall and various environmental factors can make surfaces slippery or present unplanned obstacles.
This upgrade at Edenbridge station is just part of our efforts to give passengers a much smoother journey while keeping them safe, and forms part of the Kent Railway Upgrade Plan.
Notes to Editors
Kent Railway Upgrade Plan - www.networkrail.co.uk/KentRUP
Carrying well over 2,000 trains and 300,000 passengers every weekday, the railway in Kent and South East London is among the busiest and most congested in the country.
The infrastructure is also some of the oldest and most complex, which means it’s more difficult to maintain, leading to faults and delays for passengers. Passenger experience is at the heart of everything we do and we recognise that performance has not been good enough.
That’s why we’ll be investing a record £1.25 billion over the next five years to improve the railway. We’ll be replacing old equipment with brand new, reliable technology to improve journeys for passengers.
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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