Waterloo Upgrade August 2017 – 5th August 2017
It’s all change at Waterloo station with Platforms 20 to 24 open for business.
I think what has been revealed today is an excellent stop-gap to allow platforms 1 to 9 to be extended.
- Network Rail and South West Trains are also to be congratulated on putting a large number of informed staff on the platforms to answer passegers’ questions.
- With luck too, the vast open spaces around platform 20 to 24 will help to calm passengers.
- But they weren’t lucky in that everything was disrupted by a signal failure early in the day.
If I have any criticism it is over the length of time it has taken to get these platforms open.
The International platforms were closed about the time my wife died in December 2007.
That closure has just been too long.
Passenger And Train Capacity
From what I saw today, Network Rail have opened five new platforms numbered 20 to 24, with the following features.
- The ability to handle twelve-car trains.
- Wide platforms for large numbers of passengers.
- A new very wide gate line.
- Lots of natural light and fresh air.
Passengers will wish all stations could be this good.
Just imagine five packed commuter trains arriving at those new platforms at around the same time.
- Each pair of new five-car Class 707 train can hold just over sixteen hundred passengers.
- A ten-car Class 720 train, which must be similar to South Western Railway’s new trains can hold around fifteen hundred passengers.
So can the platforms, gates and concourse handle all those passengers?
As the flow of passengers seems straight down wide platforms and into the Underground or out of the station through the Victory Arch, I suspect that the station has been designed to handle the greatest number of passengers, the trains can deliver.
With Crossrail, the stations at Shenfield and Abbey Wood will be handling twelve trains per hour (tph) in a two platform layout or 6 tph at each platform.
I suspect that the signalling and track layout at platforms 20-24 at Waterloo station, is such that each platform can handle at least four tph and possibly the six, that will be achieved at Shenfield and Abbey Wood.
If they can handle six, that is an unbelievable thirty tph.
This figure is probably way in excess of other capacity constraints in the complex rail network out of Waterloo, but at least platform capacity won’t be a constraint on growth in the future.
But four tph on each platform, would give a theoretical capacity of twenty tph or around thirty thousand passengers per hour. That is a massive increase in the capacity of the station.
It has to be taken into account, that part of the Waterloo Upgrade for August 2017 is lengthening Platforms 1 to 4 at the station and improving the track layout for the lower-numbered platforms. Access to the Underground is also being improved at platforms 1 to 4.
Are Network Rail creating another high-capacity set of four platforms at the other end of the station?
What is happening at platforms 1 to 4 will be revealed at the end of the month.
Conclusion
The work has whetted my appetite as to what the station will eventually look like!
In An Analysis Of Waterloo Suburban Services Proposed To Move To Crossrail 2, I came to the following conclusion.
Crossrail 2’s proposals for the suburban branch lines from Waterloo to the four destinations of Chessington South, Epsom, Hampton Court and Shepperton stations, can be fulfilled using the following.
- More platform capacity at Waterloo.
- Modern high-performance 100 mph trains like Class 707 trains.
- Some improvements to track and signals between Waterloo and Wimbledon stations.
- Wimbledon station would only need minor modifications.
- A measure of ATO between Waterloo and Wimbledon stations.
What effect will this have on the design of Crossrail 2?
The Class 707 trains will not be arriving, but high performance Aventras will.
This August’s Upgrade will certainly make substantial increases in service frequencies and passenger capacity possible.
Waterloo Upgrade August 2017 – Virginia Water Station
I took these pictures at Virginia Water station.
The station was updated a few years ago, but the platforms have been lengthened to twelve-car platforms, as part of the August 2017 upgrade.
If the station has a problem, it is that the Waterloo to Reading Line and the Chertsey Branch, split on the Waterloo side of the station, so it would be impossible to have a ten-car train formed of two five-car units arrive in the station, with one departing on each line.
I suppose they could always split at Egham station, which has recently been updated with twelve-car platforms.
These two half-hourly services.
- Waterloo to Guildford via Aldershot
- Waterloo to Chertsey
Could be run by five-car trains, which ran as a ten-car train to Egham.
- Both services would move from two to four trains per hour.
- No extra train paths would be needed.
If the Class 707 trains can’t run a service like this, they’re history.
This Google Map shows Virginia Water station
Note that the scar of a chord that used to connect the Reading and Cherstey Lines can be seen South of the station.
Would it have any possibilities?
The Anonymous Widower 