PICTURES and VIDEO: New track comes into use after successful Network Rail Easter engineering investment in the South East

Tuesday 18 Apr 2017

PICTURES and VIDEO: New track comes into use after successful Network Rail Easter engineering investment in the South East

Region & Route:: | Southern

Passengers in the South East have been thanked for their patience after Network Rail engineers carried out a busy programme of improvements to the railway over the Easter weekend as part of the Railway Upgrade Plan.

Network Rail and its contractors worked on projects across the region from London to the south coast, laying new track, installing new signalling, improving drainage, and making other improvements to make the railway more reliable.

John Halsall, Network Rail’s South East route managing director, said: “We know that there is no good time to close the railway for passengers and we really do appreciate how patient everyone was while were continuing our Railway Upgrade Plan this Easter.

“Having a full four days to carry out work gives us the chance to tackle big jobs that we simply can’t do over a normal weekend, and while there are fewer passengers travelling.

“The work we do over these bank holidays is absolutely crucial to improving the reliability of the railway and helps us carry more than 500m passengers every year.”

Notable work undertaken this Easter included:

New track through London Bridge brought into use, meaning Cannon Street trains are now running through what will be platforms 1 and 2 when the station opens in January 2018.
Sevenoaks Tunnel, which is two miles long and very, very wet, has had its drainage system improved.
Track ballast – the stones that support the tracks on a railway - has been replaced between Bognor Regis and Barnham, improving the ride for passengers and making the trains quieter for our neighbours.
Track in London Victoria station’s platforms 14 and 19 has been refurbished
A cutting in Maidstone continues to be repfrofiled and shored up
Maintenance work has taken place between Paddock Wood and Strood and Sittingbourne to Herne Bay and Dover.

Engineers are ready to go with their next programmes of work over the May Bank Holidays and Network Rail will be working with operators to make sure passengers are kept up to date with changes to train times.

Notes to Editors

NOTES:

B-Roll is available from Sevenoaks and Thameslink

August 2017 – major changes to services:

Passengers are also reminded that significant work will take place over the August 2017 bank holiday and the four working days after.

There will be no Southeastern services to or from Charing Cross, Waterloo East and London Bridge from Saturday 26 August to Saturday 2 September. This will mean fewer trains into London. The trains that do run will be diverted to alternative stations and are likely to be extremely busy. Some stations will have queueing systems in place.

Passengers will need to change their journey over these eight days. More information will be available from 10 June; please visit www.ThameslinkProgramme.co.uk/August.

Christmas and New Year:

From 23 December to 2 January, there will be major changes to services as the Thameslink Programme brings all remaining new platforms at London Bridge into use and the final section of the new concourse will open for passengers. This will mean further major changes at Christmas, with no trains at a number of London stations. Passengers on Southeastern, Thameslink and Southern trains will be significantly affected.

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 - Chris Denham
Senior media relations manager
020 3357 7969
07515 626530
chris.denham@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.