04 SUSTAINABILITYSUPPLEMENT


There will be four stations on Blackfriars Bridge accessed from


entrances on both the south and north banks – making Blackfriars the only station in London to span the Thames.


are loaded downriver with everything required for the shifts they are serving, and are tugged up stream to Blackfriars, where cranes on the bridge unload everything required, and offload spoil, used plant, and other surplus material. Barge movements have to be timed to coincide with the tides, as a low tide at Blackfriars would leave the barges grounded. The challenge of coordinating delivery around the requirements of the railway and the river is a complex conundrum that the Network Rail project managers wrestle with every day.


Counting down to completion on Thameslink The Blackfriars project is entering its final phase, with all the passenger benefits on schedule for delivery by summer 2012, in advance of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London. Passengers are already using a new entrance to the station on the south bank of the river Thames, providing direct access to businesses in Bankside, as well as top London tourist attractions like Tate Modern and the National Theatre. A new entrance on the north bank is also open for use, ready to link to the re-opened, redeveloped Blackfriars Tube station which will come into use early in 2012. On the wider Thameslink route, December


2011 saw the first 12-carriage trains running between Bedford and Brighton, providing more seats for passengers at rush hour. To make


European Railway Review Volume 18, Issue 1, 2012


this possible, Network Rail has lengthened platforms at 14 stations across the route, providing additional 4km of extra platform and carriage space. More than 160km of new power cable has been laid to provide the power demanded by longer trains, and signalling systems along the route and through central London have been upgraded and replaced. The vast majority of this work has been completed overnight and at weekends to reduce disruption to passengers. Blackfriars is one of three key station


upgrades Network Rail will deliver in central London as part of the Thameslink upgrade. At Farringdon, just two stops up the line on the way to St Pancras, a similar platform-lengthening job in a constricted City-Centre location is complicated by the impending arrival of Crossrail, the brand new east-west rail link across London. When this arrives in 2018, Farringdon will become one of the busiest rail hubs in the Capital, catering for 140 trains every hour, as the only station where Crossrail, London Underground and Thameslink services meet. This dramatic increase in passenger numbers called for a complete redesign of the station, with a new ticket hall, which opened to passengers in December 2011, creating the space for more people to use the station. The final piece of the Thameslink puzzle is


London Bridge. Work on this part of London’s railway began in early-2011, as a brand new rail


bridge was lifted into place over Borough Market, a precursor to doubling the number of tracks running through this particular bottleneck. A complete redesign of the platform layout and approaches to London Bridge, combined with a massive increase in space for passengers at the station, will be completed in 2018. This point represents the completion of the Thameslink programme, and will provide for up to 24 trains every hour between London Bridge and St Pancras, delivering a metro-style service pattern that will enable Thameslink, transforming the route, and the journeys of the passengers on it. Back at Blackfriars, work is currently at its


peak, with up to 2,000 engineering operatives working on site every day to deliver the final elements of the job. The solar panels will be one of the final pieces of the project to be completed. The switch-on of the array in summer 2012 will mark the delivery of not only a vastly improved facility for passengers, but a benchmark for sustainable technology on Britain’s rail network.


BIOGRAPHY


Paul Byrne is Network Rail’s Senior Project Manager for the rebuild of Blackfriars rail bridge. His team are responsible for reconstruction of the historic bridge, the build of platforms above, and the construction of the new roof, complete with solar panels.


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