Sussex

The first passengers to use the new concourse and airport entrance arrived on Thameslink's 05:48 Bedford to Brighton service, which pulled into platform 7 this morning.

Eight new escalators and five new lifts will provide a step change for accessibility. The new lifts and escalators, along with four new stairways and widened platforms, will help passengers move between the train station and the airport more quickly and easily. 

Easier journeys from train to plane will benefit passengers across the wider network, helping to keep trains running on time by removing the congestion and queuing on platforms that delay trains.

Passengers travelling on the Brighton Main Line are already seeing the benefits of the project thanks to track upgrades that have helped reduce journey times between Brighton and London to one hour on some services.

The existing station concourse is also bigger and better than ever before. We have installed new customer information systems and more ticket gates. We also have a new dedicated passenger assistance point, which has been installed to enhance the passenger experience and to help people move through the station more quickly.

The new concourse will now act as the new entrance for people accessing the airport terminal, while the existing concourse will be for people exiting. The existing station concourse, station footbridges and the South Terminal linkspan have been refurbished and reconfigured to provide a seamless one-way system to the airport from the train station.

Once again, we would like to thank passengers for their patience and understanding while work has been taking place at the station. This has been one of our biggest and most exciting projects in recent years and we are thrilled with the results. 

To find out more about the project and to watch a time-lapse video of the works, please click here.

At Waterloo station, a Remembrance Day service was held. Our own representatives, along with colleagues from South Western Railway and British Transport Police, laid wreaths to commemorate the occasion. Matt Pocock (Director of Operations, Wessex) and Claire Mann (MD at SWR) both did readings. The ceremony was led by the Railway Chaplain, Christopher Henley.

At St Pancras International, an Armistice Day memorial service was held, with a wreath laying ceremony taking place on the Grand Terrace.

To mark these events, a two minute silence was held in tribute to those who died or were injured in service to their country. Our managed stations and depots across the region took part, along with hundreds of other stations, many of which held their own services and paid tribute in their own way across the railway network. 

You may have seen poppies on sale at tables and stands at some of our stations in the run up to Armistice day. We are pleased to have played our part in accommodating those who had given up their time to sell the poppies, with £1,017,000 being raised by the Royal British Legion on London Poppy Day alone! 

The upgrades taking place between Crystal Palace, Tulse Hill and Peckham Rye are part of a more than £400 million programme of investment in track and signalling upgrades that we are delivering in South London. The work will see the old and unreliable 1980s signalling equipment replaced with the latest technology to improve journeys for passengers, and track upgrades at key locations on the network.

During a seven-day closure from Saturday 10 to Friday 16 February, Thameslink passengers travelling between Herne Hill, Wimbledon and Sutton are being advised to use London Buses or alternative National Rail, London Trams or London Underground routes.

Southern passengers travelling between London Bridge and Streatham or Streatham Hill will be able to use alternative routes on London Buses and a limited replacement bus service will also run. Passengers on the West Norwood and Crystal Palace to Norwood Junction or Beckenham Hill sections will be able to use alternative London Buses, London Trams and London Overground routes.

London Overground services between Canada Water and Clapham Junction are also suspended from Saturday 10 to Sunday 18 February to allow the improvement works to take place. A rail replacement bus service will operate to help passengers to complete their journeys during this closure.

There will also be some weekend closures in the same area before and after the February half-term closure. These are needed to allow engineers to get the new signalling system ready and then to remove redundant equipment that is no longer required.

The switch-on of the new signalling is the culmination of three years of work. We have installed 65 new signals, new signal gantries, two new power supply points and hundreds of kilometres of signalling, telecoms and power supply cables.

Signalling control of the Crystal Palace, Peckham Rye and Tulse Hill areas will move from the Victoria Area Signalling Centre to the state-of-the-art Three Bridges Rail Operating Centre from 16 February.

Over the seven-day period, our engineers worked around the clock to renew the railway track on the North Downs line, which links Reading and Guildford with Redhill and Gatwick Airport stations. This work was carried out to improve reliability for Great Western Railway (GWR) customers.

A range of work was completed, including the renewal of 332 meters of 1970s track, as well as the rails, sleepers, and ballast (track stones) and the replacement of 16-wheel timbers over the river Wey.

The investment of just under £1m to this line will benefit customers for years to come as it will extend the life expectancy of the railway infrastructure and will reduce the need for speed restrictions, allowing GWR to continue running smooth and reliable services.

• The next phase of the South London & Victoria signalling programme continued to progress around Peckham Rye, Tulse Hill & at Crystal Palace. Our project teams installed a gantry, signal posts & began testing the new system, which will come into use over the Feb half term 2024.
• Speaking of London Victoria, the work to improve the gate line capacity at the station is still in full swing. The steel gantries that sit above the gates have been installed. These gantries are used to hold customer information systems and will greatly improve the provision of travel information for passengers at the station. 

• Bridge repairs and maintenance works were carried out on the Ebury Road Bridge near London Victoria. This bridge sits on the approach into the station, providing a safe passage for the railway and the thousands of passengers that use the station every day. 

• At Eastbourne, track renewals were carried out to upgrade the older sleepers and ballast that had sat under the rails previously. Not only does this help improve the safety of the tracks that the trains travel on in this area, but also helps to improve the performance and reliability of the trains that travel on this stretch of the railway. 

• Our teams were near St Leonards to carry out repairs to the brickwork of the Victorian era Packham Bridge. The task involved recasing a section of the arch by removing and rebuilding hte brickwork and grout that had deteriorated over time. 

• At Lovers Walk in Brighton, a small King Post Wall was installed by our teams to help prevent chalk, stones and vegetation from falling onto the signalling equipment and the track from the embankment.

• At Tinsley Green, a points refurbishment was carried out. This is the part of the railway that allows trains to switch from one track to another. The base that the points sit on was replaced by new hardwood timbers, which will help to reduce the wear and tear on the points and ultimately make them more reliable.

The joint teams, made up of our volunteers and Shelter staff, managed to raise a total of £7,982.05. These donations were made through sales of different items of pre-loved clothing at the different pop up shops around the stations.

32 volunteers from various teams here at Network Rail were able to use their volunteer days to take part in this fundraising event, with over 236 hours donated by volunteers. 

We are fortunate enough to be given volunteer days as part of our roles here at Network Rail, so if you have any projects or events that you need some help with, please do let us know and we will see what we can do to help!

To find out more about our partnership with Shelter, as well as our wider 'Routes out of Homelessness' campaign, please click here. 

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