Britain’s busiest railway station reopens a few hours later than promised, after late snags with signalling testing.
BRITAIN’S busiest railway station reopened a few hours later than promised, following a three-anda-half-week partial closure to build longer platforms.
The delay led to widespread disruption for London Waterloo passengers on the first day back to work after the August Bank Holiday weekend.
In an attempt to complete the project on time, Network Rail unexpectedly closed all 19 platforms at Waterloo from 1600 on Bank Holiday Monday. This left only the five temporary international platforms in use.
At 2100 the infrastructure operator was still promising work was on target, with Chief Executive Mark Carne posting a video on Twitter stating that all was well.
It had been due to hand back the platforms to South Western Railway at 0530. But during testing of signalling equipment, a problem was discovered that could not be resolved in time.
At 0400 SWR was informed that the platforms would not reopen. Up to that point the train operator believed the work was on target.
Fourteen platforms finally opened shortly after 0700. Compounded by later signal and interlocking issues, cancellations and delays continued throughout the day.
“This was one of the largest and most complex upgrades in the station’s history. The work will benefit passengers for decades to come,” said Network Rail’s Route Managing Director Becky Lumlock.
“However, a small safety-critical issue was discovered during testing and for the benefit of passengers we briefly delayed reopening some platforms, which has led to short-term delays for which we apologise.”
There was further disruption in the morning peak the following day, with newly-extended Platforms 1-3 briefly closed. Network Rail said the cause was a track circuit failure.
Ten platforms were again closed from 2230 that evening to 0530 the following morning, to correct signalling issues with Platforms 1-3. Thereafter SWR said a full service was running smoothly for the first time since early August.
Insiders suggested the problems could “just about” be described as “project snagging”.
The last-minute problems threatened to overshadow the key element of an £800 million project to prepare suburban routes serving Waterloo for ten-car trains. Platforms 1-4 have been lengthened to accommodate the longer trains, which required modification of the curved outer ends of Platforms 5-9. The construction phase had gone entirely to plan.
The five former international platforms were brought back into temporary use during the August blockade, and then for a week
to accept Southeastern services diverted from London Bridge. The international terminal was then closed again.
Once the latter work is completed in December 2018, station capacity will be increased by 30%. That represents an extra 45,000 passengers each morning and evening. Currently 600 passengers a minute arrive in the morning peak.
“Over the next 16 months we’ll turn our attention to the final stages of the redevelopment of the former international terminal,” said Lumlock.
“We’ll be working behind the scenes to permanently bring the five extra platforms back into use.” @PaulCliftonBBC