Network Rail consults on Croydon remodelling

Network Rail is consulting in November and December on aspirations to remodel the railway around Croydon, to eliminate operating bottlenecks.

Under the plans, additional tracks will be built around Croydon, Croydon East station will be remodelled and expanded, and a series of flyovers constructed to eliminate conflicting movements where the lines from the South Coast, Sussex and Surrey meet those coming from London Victoria, London Bridge and beyond.

Flyovers would be built on the ‘Selhurst triangle’, while two bridges would be widened to provide seven tracks (up from five) north of East Croydon station. Norwood Junction station would be reconfigured to allow more trains to run and provide step-free access.

NR says the railway around Croydon is “by far” the busiest and most congested part of the network, with 30% more passengers and trains passing through it each day than London Euston and King’s Cross stations combined. Train punctuality on the Brighton Main Line is also said to be the lowest of any major route.

NR’s South East Route Managing Director John Halsall said: “Removing the Croydon bottleneck is the only practical way to provide the step-change in reliability and capacity that passengers and businesses in Sussex so desperately want to see.

“For too long, train performance on the Brighton Main Line has been below the level that commuters and other passengers expect and deserve. While a number of factors have contributed to these issues in recent years, the basic layout of our railway through the Croydon area and the bottleneck it creates means reliability won’t ever improve to acceptable levels without significant changes.”