Major rebuilding works are going on at London Waterloo station this August as passengers are told to stay away
Not the best day to have this news announced what with the Tube strike causing trouble on the Central and Waterloo & City Lines…
But Network Rail and South West Trains have announced details on major upgrades going on at London Waterloo this August – and thousands of passengers will want to avoid it.
From 5-28 August, platforms one to nine at the UK's busiest station will close. Platforms 20-24 will temporarily reopen, but "significantly fewer" trains will run right across the network.
Read more: A strike on the Central line kicks off
Why? Work will be going on to extend the platforms for suburban routes as a part of the £800m Waterloo & South West upgrade, which will, eventually, provide 30 per cent more space for passengers. So we'll have to stick it out until then…
Here's what you'll need to brace yourselves for:
- The majority of stations will have fewer train services
- Services and stations will be busier than usual, especially in the morning and evening peaks on weekdays
- Some journeys are likely to take longer
- There will be queuing systems outside some stations
- A small number of stations will be closed
- Other operators’ services will also be busier while passengers take alternative routes, including London Underground
South West Trains operates 1,700 services carrying 650,000 passengers a day and it's warned the majority of its stations will have fewer trains.
You can check the status of your home station from a drop down list here – the likes of Clapham Junction, Richmond and Putney will all have significantly fewer trains calling at the station.
As well as the August closure, there will be works on some weekends from Easter through to October – more information on those will be published closer to the time, though passengers have been warned to check ahead.
Read more: The top 10 busiest stations in London (and Britain) last year
Becky Lumlock, route managing director of Network Rail, said:
Currently the vast majority of our engineering work is happening behind the scenes. However, during August we have a number of critical pieces of the programme to complete which will mean we need to close some platforms, while also keeping hundreds of thousands of passengers moving.
This means big changes for passengers and we want them to be well-equipped to plan ahead.