The South West Trains-Network Rail alliance will upgrade tracks at London Waterloo station during the Christmas period with an investment of about £1m in order to improve reliability on one of the busiest sections of railway in Britain.
Critical switches and crossings that have completed life-span of three decades will be replaced.
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During the execution of track work, platforms one to nine will be out of service for passengers. However, train services will continue to run throughout the works with some starting and terminating at stations away from London Waterloo. Furthermore, most of the works are planned on 27, 28 and 29 December to ensure least disruption for passengers.
Alliance managing director Tim Shoveller said: "With more than 100 million passengers a year travelling through Waterloo station there is never a good time to carry out work which affects the level of service we can provide.
"However, we normally see around half the number of passengers travelling over Christmas than at other times of the year, so it provides a good opportunity to carry out much needed improvement work on the track on the busy approach to the Waterloo station."
The alliance will use a 350t road crane to lift pre-built sections of track onto the railway, apart from an engineering train to remove the old track from the worksite.
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By GlobalData"Since the start of the alliance, we have hugely increased the amount of maintenance on our network and are now investing an extra £3m a year to improve the quality of the infrastructure on the UK’s busiest commuter network."
