LONDON UNDERGROUND OPERATIONAL ENHANCEMENT AWARD: LONDON BRIDGE
London Bridge station was the capital’s first railway terminal (1836), serving the line out to Greenwich, and was soon joined by the terminal for the line to Croydon.
Not much remains of these original structures. The adjacent (though separate) stations have been continually expanded and modified to cope with additional routes and services, as well as the everincreasing passenger numbers (currently some 56 million a year).
The result was a very complex, but not very effective, station structure where surviving heritage elements had been much overlaid.
The decision was therefore made to undertake a thorough rebuild of the station structure and reconfiguration of the tracks serving it ( both through and terminal), starting in 2013.
An unavoidable casualty was the overall roof of 1866, but other heritage features have survived to be incorporated into the re-ordered structure - such as arcades of quadripartite arches, the street facades on either side, and the six early composite cast-iron and wrought-iron Warren trussed girders (1850). These have been complemented by distinctive contemporary architectural features.
Redundant ironwork which could not be used was found a new home - for example, on the Vale of Rheidol Railway at Aberystwyth.
The London Underground Operational Enhancement Award went to Network Rail, on behalf of the Thameslink Programme, for this complex work in transforming London Bridge station into an effective and user-friendly transport node and a heritage asset enhancing its locality. The picture shows existing arches in St Thomas’ Street.