NEW LIFTS AT ST ALBANS STATION AS PART OF £5M MAKEOVER

Friday 30 Jan 2009

NEW LIFTS AT ST ALBANS STATION AS PART OF £5M MAKEOVER

Region & Route:: | Southern

Three new passenger lifts at St Albans station are now making access easier for all, particularly people with reduced mobility.

Each lift provides step-free access between the ticket hall and the platforms. The lifts are fitted with closed circuit television and telephone links, can accommodate up to 16 people and are fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act.

Marking an important milestone in the station’s £5m makeover, the new lifts complement a number of significant improvements being made at St Albans by Network Rail in partnership with First Capital Connect. These improvements include:

A new, larger station entrance to reduce congestion and to make access easier
A new 813 space multi-storey car park, with 13 spaces for blue badge holders
Additional facilities for cycles and motorbikes
More CCTV and lighting to increase customer safety and security
Step-free access to all platforms, with new lifts for the mobility impaired
A new low-level ticket counter for wheelchair users
Two new large retail units providing convenience shopping for people on the go

Dyan Crowther, Network Rail route director, said: “St Albans is a busy station and the improvements that have been made will be welcomed by the growing number of passengers on this route. It is important the station caters for this growth and provides access for all, particularly for those people with reduced mobility or parents with prams. The new lifts will deliver these benefits and underline the major investment being made in station improvements across the rail network.”

Elaine Holt, managing director of First Capital Connect, said: "This is an early milestone in making St Albans a major transport interchange suited for the demands of the twenty-first century. It is great to see the station development progressing at such speed ready for the new, longer trains that will follow as part of the Thameslink Programme."

The St Albans station redevelopment project is due for completion by spring 2009. Immediately following this project, important platform extension work will also begin, as part of the multi-billion pound Thameslink upgrade programme. The extended platforms will accommodate longer trains and increase capacity.

Notes to editors

In addition to the works carried out as part of the £5m station upgrade, the following improvements have been delivered by Linden Homes as part of a commercial property development at the station: (i) A new bus interchange for a higher frequency of buses and longer buses (ii) Incorporation of a safer turning area for vehicles at the existing taxi waiting area (iii) Improvements to the road junction at Station Way and Hatfield Road to manage traffic flow in and out of the station Thameslink Upgrade Project – key benefits Increased capacity: more trains and more carriages. Up to 24 trains per hour on the Thameslink route across central London by 2015 (presently eight) during the peak period with the added benefit of delivering 12 carriage services rather than the present eight Less overcrowding: easing passenger congestion across the Thameslink route and reducing congestion on the tube (particularly the Northern and Victoria lines) with much improved tube access at the new Farringdon and Blackfriars stations Simplifying track layouts and modernising signals: reducing bottlenecks and logjams on a busy network Better stations: major investment at London Bridge, Blackfriars, Farringdon and platform extensions at outlying stations to accommodate longer trains. Blackfriars will become the first London station to span the river Thames, Farringdon will later become an interchange with Crossrail, while London Bridge will be completely rebuilt and modernised with capacity for thousands of additional travellers during peak periods Better Olympic journeys: connecting more people directly to the special ‘Olympic Javelin’ service from St Pancras International to Stratford A direct interchange with Crossrail: The scheme offers major improvements on North to South rail services across London and the South East, complementing the proposed East to West London Crossrail service

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 - South East route
020 3357 7969
southeastroutecomms@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.

Media centre