Thursday 2 Oct 2014
VIDEO: Demolition at London Bridge makes room for Britain's biggest railway station concourse
- Region & Route:
- | Southern
New timelapse footage from London Bridge station shows the scale of demolition work taking place underneath the platforms to create space for the station’s new street-level concourse.
Network Rail is completely rebuilding London Bridge – the capital’s oldest rail terminal – as part of the £6.5bn Thameslink Programme, which will increase capacity and reliability on one of Europe’s busiest rail routes.
The new London Bridge station will give passengers more space and easier connections to the Tube thanks to a new concourse the size of the pitch at Wembley Stadium, as well as extra tracks and platforms so more trains can run through central London.
The work to rebuild the station is being carried out in phases to keep the station open for business and minimise disruption to passengers. This latest timelapse video, taken in September, shows the demolition of 19th century brick arches underneath platforms 10 and 11, which are currently being rebuilt and will reopen to passengers in January.
The first part of the new station concourse at London Bridge will open in 2016, with the entire concourse complete in 2018.
Notes to editors
Footage was taken over the weekend of 13-14 September 2014.
About the Thameslink Programme:
The government-sponsored £6.5bn Thameslink Programme will transform north-south travel through London. When complete in 2018 it will give passengers:
- New, spacious trains running every 2 to 3 minutes through central London in the peak
- Improved connections and better options to more destinations on an expanded Thameslink network including Cambridge and Peterborough
- Robust new track and signalling systems offer more reliable journeys
- A completely rebuilt London Bridge station with more space and great facilities
Find out more at ThameslinkProgramme.co.uk
Follow @TLProgramme
London Bridge facts:
- Over 117 million people a year go to London Bridge or through it to Cannon Street and Charing Cross – 54 million start or end their at London Bridge itself
- Platform 6 is the busiest in Europe serving 18 trains per hour
- The new concourse at London Bridge will be bigger than the pitch at Wembley, increasing passenger capacity by 65%
- London Bridge will be longer than the Shard is tall
- Up to 24 trains per hour will run in each direction, during the peak, between St Pancras and Blackfriars
- Up to 18 Thameslink trains an hour will run in each direction, during the peak, between London Bridge and St Pancras – currently there are none between 7.30 and 9am
- 178 years old – London Bridge is London’s oldest surviving rail terminus, first opened in Dec 1836
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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.
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