Surrey rail passengers advised of up to 60 minute waiting times at stations during August upgrade

Wednesday 26 Jul 2017

Surrey rail passengers advised of up to 60 minute waiting times at stations during August upgrade

Region & Route:: Southern: Wessex; | Southern

Network Rail and South West Trains are today advising passengers in Surrey to expect waiting times of up to 60 minutes at some stations during the busiest parts of the day, while Network Rail carries out the largest upgrade scheme at Waterloo for decades this August.

From 5-28 August, platforms 1-10 will close to allow Network Rail’s engineers to extend platforms 1-4 to accommodate longer, 10-car trains, and to modify platforms 5-8. During this period, significantly fewer trains will be running across the South West Railway.

As a result, stations across the network will be much busier than normal and passengers will need to wait longer for their trains. Across Surrey, Network Rail and South West Trains estimate the following waiting times at stations:

Station	Estimated waiting time*
Waterloo	30 minutes
Vauxhall	30 minutes
Clapham Junction	45 minutes
Wimbledon	30 minutes
Esher	30-60 minutes
Hersham	30-60 minutes
Weybridge	20 minutes
Worcester Park	20 minutes
Walton-on-Thames	20 minutes
Woking	20 minutes

In addition, waiting times at London Waterloo are expected to be up to 30 minutes during the busiest times of day.

Becky Lumlock, route managing director at Network Rail, said: “This August we’re carrying out the single largest package of investment at Waterloo for decades as part of our £800 million Waterloo & South West Upgrade. This will ultimately lead to space for 45,000 extra passengers during the busiest times of day, equivalent to more than the capacity of the Oval and the O2 Arena combined.

“Doing major improvement work is always disruptive, so we’re providing these estimates on waiting times to make sure that passengers have everything they need to plan ahead. At the same time, we’re also continuing to advise passengers to travel earlier or later than normal to avoid the busiest times of day, or to consider working from home where possible.”

“I fully appreciate there’s never a good time to close any section of the railway, but we’ll be doing everything we can to make journeys as smooth as possible, and passengers will see extra staff at stations who will be on hand to provide information and advice.”

Adam Piddington, customer service director at South West Trains, added: “Asking passengers to queue outside stations is never a decision we take lightly but we do expect these works to cause some temporary inconvenience for our passengers and we want to be as honest as possible.

“We have carried out an extensive 12 month campaign to raise awareness of the works taking place and we ask passengers for their patience while these works are carried out which will provide extra capacity for the growing numbers of passengers who use this railway.”

Independent research carried out by Transport Focus, the independent transport watchdog, shows that 84% of passengers are already aware of the Waterloo upgrade, and around half are planning to work from home, use another office or take annual leave during the part-closure.

Passengers are advised to check how their journey will be impacted by visiting southwesttrains.co.uk/wswupgrade, and to avoid travelling at the busiest times of day or consider working from home.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

*Other stations will also be impacted and the estimates should be treated as a guide as waiting times may vary.

Waterloo & South West Upgrade: Overview

This is the biggest investment in the railway into Waterloo for decades. It will provide a bigger and better London Waterloo and 30% more space for passengers during the morning and evenings by December 2018. That’s room for an extra 45,000 people each morning and afternoon – equivalent to more than the capacity of the O2 arena and Oval Cricket ground combined. The upgrade will also allow us to provide more space for longer distance passengers in the near future.

Across the network, the Waterloo & South West Upgrade will bring the following by December 2018:

Five more platforms at Waterloo, through the rebuilding of the former Waterloo International Terminal
Longer platforms for longer trains, at a number of stations on the Reading line.
30 brand new trains, providing 150 extra carriages. The trains will run between London Waterloo and Windsor & Eton Riverside, including the Hounslow Loop and Weybridge via Brentford, calling at many of the network’s busiest stations such as Clapham Junction, Vauxhall, Brentford and Twickenham.
New technology to make trains more efficient and improve punctuality.
Improvements to depots and maintenance facilities to look after the network’s biggest ever fleet of trains.

August 2017

During August, work will start to extend platforms 1-4 at Waterloo, to allow longer 10-carriage trains to run on Suburban routes. Platforms have already been extended at more than 60 stations on the suburban network but Waterloo is the final, and most complex, station which needs upgrading.

Due to the layout of the track and the curve of the neighbouring platforms, to extend platforms 1-4, we also need to carry out the following work, which requires 10 platforms to be closed at Waterloo:

Install new track on the approaches to platforms 1-8.
Realign and rebuild the far ends of platforms 5-8.
Provide access for the required machinery to carry out the work.

To accommodate these changes, Network Rail will provide five extra platforms at London Waterloo by temporarily re-opening platforms 20-24 in the International Terminal.

There will still be some further work to carry out after August 2017, but this will be restricted to weekends. When completed, longer 10-carriage trains will be able to serve suburban routes when the new timetable is introduced from December 2017.

Passengers can check how they will be affected by visiting southwesttrains.co.uk/wswupgrade or by searching online for ‘Waterloo Upgrade’.

Thameslink Upgrade

Between Saturday, 26 August and Saturday, 2 September, including four working days, there will be no Southeastern services to or from London Bridge, Waterloo East and Charing Cross while Network Rail continues to rebuild London Bridge station and the surrounding railway, as part of the Thameslink Programme. On Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 August there will be no Southeastern trains at Cannon Street and Blackfriars and fewer Southern services to London Bridge.

During this time there will be far fewer trains into London. Those that do run will be much busier than usual and will be diverted to other stations, including Victoria, Blackfriars, Cannon Street and London Waterloo International. Queuing systems will be in place in some stations and passengers should leave more time for their journey. Passengers are strongly advised to plan ahead and visit www.ThameslinkProgramme.co.uk/2017 for detailed travel advice.

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 - Owen Johns
Media relations manager (Wessex route)
07710 959476
Owen.Johns@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.