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Platforms 1, 2 and 4 will be extended by roughly 45m while platform 3 will be extended by 72.3m. The £5m makeover of St Albans station by Network Rail and First Capital Connect is nearly complete. It is delivering a number of significant improvements: • 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 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 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 be the first London station to span the river Thames, Farringdon will 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