NHS staff among those left stranded by Easter weekend rail shutdown
Buses will replace trains on a string of routes across South-east London over the Easter weekend as £90million worth of rail signal improvements are finished.
The work means bus replacements will run between Lewisham and Orpington, and Lewisham and Sidcup – hitting many NHS staff who need to reach hospitals over that weekend.
Buses will also run instead of trains on Easter Sunday, April 12, between Lewisham and Dartford. Tickets will be accepted on alternative routes, buses and the Tube – but many staff will face longer journeys on their tough late-night shifts.
One hospital nurse from Hither Green was in tears at the prospect of having to take a bus home after late-night shifts during the holiday period. Her mother, who did not want to be named, said: “She is doing 14 and 15-hour shifts at the moment then coming home a midnight so the prospect of doing that at Easter has really upset her.
“Network Rail really ought to delay it. It will be a massive problem for NHS staff. I don’t think anyone has thought about it properly yet.
“The last thing hospital staff need to have now is trouble getting home.”
A new signalling system will be switched on from Friday 10 April to Monday 13 April rom Hither Green to Grove Park, Mottingham and Bromley North to cut delays.The work will replace an old 1970s signalling system on the Grove Park, Sidcup and Bromley North lines with a more reliable £81m system. Other changes are:
- Track circuits, which detect trains, have been replaced with 254 more reliable axle counters
- 58 new signals and nine new, easier maintained signal gantries built
- Power supply upgraded and made more resilient
- Signalling improvements to provide turnback opportunities at Hither Green, Grove Park and Lee, allowing trains to reverse if there are delays or during engineering works.
- Signal improvements at Grove Park to allow 12-car trains to stop at platform 3.
- Signalling control of the area will be transferred to the to the state-of-the-art Three Bridges route control centre, so the trains can recover more quickly when there is an incident.
- Over Easter and follow-up weekends, deep cleaning and maintenance of closed stations on the affected lines
