Network Rail has announced that they have completed work on Egham and Virginia Water stations. The planned work was to extend the platforms at both of these stations in order to prepare them for the larger 10 carriage trains that will be coming in to operation.

Network Rail’s engineers undertook the work as part of the £800 million Waterloo and South West Upgrade schemes. The idea behind the upgrades is to increase the capacity of passengers that come in to Waterloo station by 30% This increase in capacity is set to be reached by the end of next year. The platforms have been extended in order to accommodate the larger 10 car trains that are expected to be running from May 2017. 30 new larger trains will be added to the network which will add 150 more carriages.

Network Rail will also be carrying out further work to Virginia Water, as lifts are going to be installed as part of the new footbridge although this work is not due to start until June. Network Rail is carrying out this work as part of the Railway Upgrade Plan that should hopefully deliver a better service for their passengers.  The engineers have had to work under tricky conditions in order to complete the platform extensions. Both of the projects were finished on time and on budget despite the challenges that the team has come up against.

At Egham station, the longer platforms mean that the trains will not overhang the level crossing while stopping at the station. This will improve the waiting times for the drivers using the crossing, an added bonus for the upgrade works. The upgrade plan taking place in the Waterloo area is the largest investments to be carried out in decades. The plan is to improve the efficiency of the network, before expanding the service for longer distance passengers.