OREANDA-NEWS. The work is just part of an ?800m investment in the railway running into London Waterloo, the UK’s busiest railway station. It is the biggest package of improvements for passengers travelling to and from the central London hub for decades.

Seiki Payne, project manager at Network Rail said, “Since 1996 the number of passenger journeys on routes into and out of London Waterloo has increased from 108 million to over 230 million making it one of the most intensively used sections of the railway network in Britain, so we’re really excited to be delivering a better railway and better journeys for passengers on this route.

“Between now and January next year we’ll be extending the platforms at Camberley to accommodate longer trains as part of our Railway Upgrade Plan. During this time there will be some disruption to weekend services and fewer parking spaces available in the car park so I’d like to remind all passengers to check before they travel while works are ongoing.”

Camberley is one of ten stations that will benefit from longer platforms, which will allow ten-car trains to operate, rather than just the current eight-car services, providing more space for passengers.

The new, longer services will be introduced in summer 2017. Other upgrades include rebuilding the former Waterloo International Terminal to provide an additional five platforms, and the introduction of 150 brand new carriages in the region’s rail network.

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 1.65bn journeys by rail every year and move hundreds of millions of tonnes of freight, saving almost 8m lorry journeys. We employ 36,000 people across Britain and work round-the-clock, each and every day, to provide a safe, reliable railway.

About the Railway Upgrade Plan

The Railway Upgrade Plan is Network Rail's investment plan for Britain's railways. It makes up two-thirds of Network Rail's £40bn spending priorities for the five years to 2019 and represents the biggest sustained programme of rail modernisation since the Victoria era. It is designed to provide more capacity, relieve crowding and respond to the tremendous growth Britain's railways continue to experience; passenger numbers have doubled in the past 20 years and are set to double again over the next 25 years - so we need to continue to invest in building a bigger, better railway.