Media centre

Wednesday 1 Sep 2021

Over £1.8 billion spent across the south on improvements with passengers returning to the railway more than 18 months after the first lockdown, Network Rail’s Sussex route says “welcome back”

Region & Route:

Southern

| Southern: Sussex

• Network Rail Sussex route, which maintains and operates tracks from London Victoria and London Bridge to commuter towns of south London, parts of Surrey, Croydon and Brighton, spent over £643m maintaining and upgrading the railway during lockdown, so passengers came back to a better railway
• Enhancements worth over £150m included the continued work to upgrade Gatwick and Crawley stations
• Passengers welcomed back with enhanced cleaning and advised to wear masks in crowded stations.

Network Rail’s Sussex route has invested over £643m in the railway to support the country in its mission to ‘build back better’ so passengers can feel confident and safe when they return to travelling by train.

Even at the height of the pandemic, Network Rail was working to keep trains running for critical workers, such as NHS staff, as well as making sure thousands of tonnes of vital goods, like food, fuel and medical supplies, were transported by freight trains every day.

This included the continued work to upgrading Gatwick station, the work to, improve access at Crawley and upgrade the signalling between London Victoria, Clapham and Balham.

John Halsall, Network Rail Southern region managing director, said: “We’re really excited to welcome more passengers back to the railway now that the coronavirus restrictions have been lifted.

“I want to pay tribute to the thousands of Network Rail and train operator colleagues who have worked tirelessly over the past 18 months to keep the country moving during this incredibly challenging time.

“Our passengers deserve to travel with confidence, so we’ve been working hard to keep you safe with enhanced cleaning and new one-way systems to avoid crowding, and we’re asking passengers to continue to wear face coverings in crowded spaces out of respect to others.”

Chris Fowler, Customer Services Director for Southern, said: “We’re looking forward to welcoming customers back on board. Over the past year, our colleagues have worked hard to keep services running to support key workers and essential travel.

“In addition, we’ve also continued to carry out our multi-million-pound, network-wide station improvement programme. Involving more than 1,000 projects and 250 stations – we’re confident that returning customers will enjoy a better station experience.”

 Case study

The railway’s own key workers, including signallers and maintenance teams, worked day in day out in the national effort to keep the rail network open and support the country through this challenging time.

One of those was Tina Kearns, a resourcing manager who helped roster staff to keep the railway moving when hundreds were isolating or off due to Covid-19. She said: “It’s a year that I won’t forget as it was a huge responsibility to make sure we had enough staff in Sussex to make sure the trains could run.

“It’s been the hardest time during my career on the railway, one day we had 67 members of staff isolating at home, and we had to find replacements so that we could continue to provide a service to passengers as people still needed to get to work.

“We had staff who had moved to different positions who came back to help, and what has been great is that everyone pulled together as a team, despite the pressure as they didn’t want to see lines closed.”