Waterloo derailment
A South West Trains Class 456 derails at London Waterloo station, causing further disruption during NR blockade.
Network Rail was completing a three-and-a-half-week blockade at London Waterloo station as this issue of RAIL closed for press, and was insisting that it will deliver the work on time.
A closure planned for August 25-28, with the station re-opening on August 29, was brought forward to include August 24, to offset the disruption caused by the derailment (see main story).
As this issue of RAIL went to press on August 23, engineering work at Waterloo was to increase by 30%, with Platforms 1-14 closed on August 24-29, and fewer than half of normal weekday trains due to run on August 24-25. Platforms 1-10 had been closed since August 5 to allow lengthening and straightening.
The blockade has formed the key element of an £800 million project to prepare suburban routes serving Waterloo for longer tencar trains.
It will eventually increase capacity at Britain’s busiest station by 30%, allowing an additional 45,000 passengers in each morning and evening peak.
During the busiest hour of the morning, 600 passengers arrive at Waterloo every minute.
The project team faced the additional challenge of a derailment on August 15 (see separate story.) Although the incident happened outside the blockaded part of the station, it forced the closure of three further platforms for more than 24 hours. It is estimated that half a day’s work was lost overall.
David Barnes, programme manager for Network Rail and deputy director of the Wessex Capacity Alliance, said: “That is still being assessed. We lost one window of time - one evening didn’t happen.”
Only Platforms 1 to 4 required lengthening. Previously they were only able to accept eightcar trains, so to make room for the longer platforms, the curved ends of Platforms 5 to 9 had to be removed and rebuilt, and the tracks realigned. New signalling has been installed on all nine platforms. A freight train was placed on the approach to Platform 10 for much of the project, to protect workers from the adjacent live railway.
“We made excellent progress with the track and building the platforms,” said Barnes. “All track on the Waterloo side of Westminster Road Bridge was completed by August 17. Then we started installing lighting, CCTV and public announcement equipment on the platforms. Then followed signalling testing in earnest.
“The visually spectacular work, the labour-intensive job, was largely done in Week 1. Weeks 2 and 3 saw fewer people on site by the day. The closure of 14 platforms is largely associated with the signal testing. The final days should not see any physical work within the station.”
There was a dramatic reduction in services at almost all stations reached from Waterloo, with some suburban stations closed altogether. Passengers on the West of England Line through Salisbury saw some trains terminate at Basingstoke, while other trains were diverted to Reading to connect with services to Paddington.
Stagecoach’s South West Trains, replaced from August 20 by First MTR’s South Western Railway (see feature, pages 86-89), had 600 extra staff on duty each day of the blockade to help passengers. Free bottled water was given out to passengers at Waterloo every afternoon. ■ After the Waterloo blockade is completed, the former international platforms are being used for one week by Southeastern services diverted from London Bridge station, where a separate partial platform blockade is taking place.
Once that is complete, the old Eurostar platforms will close again until the former international terminal’s refurbishment is finished in December 2018.