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A new railway junction which will uncork a major bottleneck on the approach to one of London’s busiest stations, allowing more frequent and more reliable train services across large parts of the south east, has moved a step closer to completion this week as the first new tracks were laid.

Passengers in Hampshire will soon benefit from a better and more reliable railway as Network Rail prepares to carry out a major track renewal project at Fareham.

Network Rail has submitted proposals for a new station building in Ilford as part of the improvements being delivered for the Crossrail project.

Network Rail is taking the next step towards making Ascot station fully-accessible as its orange army is set to remove the existing bridge at the station over the weekend of 22 and 23 October ahead of the installation of the new footbridge by February 2017.

A system which will make the railway safer for level crossing users is to be rolled out to three level crossings across Anglia from today (Friday 14 October) as part of Network Rail’s Railway Upgrade Plan.

• Network Rail’s Advanced Apprenticeship scheme to expand by 50 per cent in 2017
• 140 new apprenticeships to be made available across the country in March 2017. Of these, 16 will be to the south and west of London, located across Clapham, Salisbury, Eastleigh and Wimbledon
• Scheme expanded to two apprentice intakes each year in March and September

Yesterday (Monday) saw the first trains to run on a new section of railway through Rochester, marking the completion of the improvement work on the railway at the station.

Network Rail has completed its extensions of the platforms at Martins Heron station in Berkshire, part of its £800 million Waterloo & South West Upgrade that will see new, longer trains running between Waterloo and Reading.