Work Underway At Motspur Park Station In South London
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Business Daily.
These two paragraphs outline the project.
Network Rail has announced that £8.9 million is being invested in new lifts and walkways installed among other upgrades at Motspur Park station in south London.
Network Rail is working with South Western Railway and the London Borough of Merton Council to install a step free footbridge as part of the Government’s Access for All programme, funded by the Department for Transport (DfT).
I visited the station this morning and took these pictures.
Note.
- When Motspur Park station was built in 1925, I must assume that there were no persons of restricted mobility.
- According to some commentators, it sounds like Network Rail and its partners are going for a complete rebuild.
- Did the Woodworm Preservation Society protest at the new design?
- Some new trains to serve the station would surely help too!
It should open in early 2024.
I shall be interested to see how the new station alters passenger numbers.
The Anonymous Widower 
You can just imagine Stanley Wooderson skipping over the footbridge and down to the Motspur Park Athletics Track where he set th world record for the mile in 1931.
Comment by fammorris | April 3, 2023 |
When the station was built, the footbridge spanned just the down line; the up line FB was added in 1938, when it became the last-built example of the London & South Western Railway’s standard steel design introduced at Ewell (West) in 1898/99. The latter was also recently (2019) replaced by one of NR’s elephantine standard designs. When the lifts actually work, these are a boon to those with heavy bags, pushchairs, small children or physical frailties. However, a glance at TOC websites show that, predictably, the lifts are frequently out of order, the associated removal of platform shelters means that many passengers sit on the stairs to keep out of the rain; and because they are designed for OHLE, they force the able-bodied to climb considerably more stairs than necessary on a system that will run for the foreseeable future on third rail electrification.
Comment by Stephen Spark | April 3, 2023 |
Could what you say account for a possible change on NR’s lift supplier to Otis. I’m not sure, but new lifts seem to be Otis.
Comment by AnonW | April 3, 2023 |
I wasn’t aware that NR had changed its supplier, but if there have been reliability problems it would make sense. Maintaining the reliability of complex equipment on unstaffed stations is always going to be challenging. In fact, some might call it a mug’s game.
Comment by Stephen Spark | April 3, 2023