OREANDA-NEWS. With the second May bank holiday coming up, Network Rail engineers are about to deliver another three days of major improvement work for passengers in the south east.

The Thameslink Programme’s ongoing project to rebuild the railway around London Bridge will take another big step forward and will form one of the biggest sections of the long weekend’s work.

This will see Southeastern trains diverted away from Charing Cross, Waterloo East, Cannon Street and London Bridge (apart from Hastings line trains) while track and signalling equipment is dug up and replaced in the area. Southern and Thameslink services will continue to serve London Bridge. The work is in preparation for the next phase of changes in August when services to Cannon Street will stop calling at the station, services to Charing Cross will resume and the first half of the brand new street-level concourse will open.

Network Rail’s route managing director for the South East, Alasdair Coates, said: “Bank Holidays are hugely important to us on the railway as they give us a three-day window where we can tackle major projects, while affecting fewer passengers than if we did the work in the week.

“Over the three days from May 28-30, we will be laying new track on the railway near Bermondsey, which will allow us to link the existing railway with the ‘dive-under’ being built in the area. We will also finishing vital strengthening work on an iron bridge over the River Arun that began over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.

“As many people will have picked up, much of our work involves taking our Victorian legacy and updating it for the modern age. We need to keep updating the railway to improve our every day performance for the millions of people who rely on us.”

As well as Thameslink, work on the tracks between Plumstead and Slade Green will take place on Sunday only, as part of Crossrail’s rebuilding of Abbey Wood station.

Network Rail will also be carrying out signalling work and inspecting bridges between Streatham and Epsom/Sutton, footbridges on Sunday and Monday. This work will affect Thameslink and Southern services.

Southeastern’s Managing Director, David Statham said: “Whilst there is never a good time for engineering work to take place on our network, it is essential for Network Rail to carry out this work. We advise all passengers who are planning to travel over the bank holiday weekend to check before the travel.”

The Railway Upgrade Plan is Network Rail’s investment programme for Britain’s railways and is part of our ?40bn spending programme for the five-year period up to 31 March 2019. The plan is designed to provide more capacity, relieve crowding and respond to tremendous growth the railways have seen – a doubling of passengers in the past twenty years. The plan will deliver a bigger, better railway trains, longer trains, faster trains with more infrastructure, more reliable infrastructure and better facilities for passengers, especially at stations

About Network Rail

Network Rail owns, manages and develops Britain's railway - the 20,000 miles of track, 40,000 bridges and viaducts, and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations (the largest of which we also run). In partnership with train operators we help people take more than 1.6bn journeys by rail every year - double the number of 1996 - and move hundreds of millions of tonnes of freight, saving almost 8m lorry journeys. We're spending £40bn on the railway between 2014-19 and our Railway Upgrade Plan will deliver more frequent, more reliable, safer services and brighter and better stations.