Predicted travel chaos due to engineering work at the UK’s busiest train station got off to a muted start on Monday as commuters reported relatively normal journeys to work.
Workers heading for London had been told to expect reduced services on the first working day since platforms one to nine at Waterloo were closed on Saturday to allow work to take place until 28 August.
However, extensive publicity by South West Trains warning passengers at stations such as Vauxhall, Clapham Junction, Woking and Guildford seems to have worked, with few reports of the chaos predicted.
A commuter travelling from Denmark Hill to Richmond via Clapham Junction said Clapham Junction appeared quieter than normal at 8am.
“It wasn’t bad at all. There were tonnes of staff and loads of signage,” she said. “I had to take a bit of a convoluted route to change platforms, which was annoying for me personally, but there were no real queues and quite a lot of staff just stood about because there was nothing to do.”
Waterloo itself was eerily quiet at the normal peak of 8.30am, with commuters reporting incident-free journeys. Arjun Shan, 26, who arrived at 8am, said: “It was fine. The train was quite quiet.”
South West Trains has said it expects the station to be busiest between 5pm and 6.45pm, so passengers attempting to travel home could still face difficulties.
Major works at Waterloo till 28 August. Temporary timetable with a reduced service in place. Trains are very busy. https://t.co/o3JI2FzFcJ pic.twitter.com/HlUX8DdpLG
— South West Trains (@SW_Trains) August 7, 2017
Commuters elsewhere on the route reported similarly straightforward journeys.
Clapham Junction quiet so far this morning and plenty of staff around advising people of where to go. No queues here so far @BBCLondonNews pic.twitter.com/6YNevbI5g0
— Barry Caffrey (@BarryCaffrey) August 7, 2017
So far so good, on a train to Weybridge even earlier than usual. Warnings must have worked as Waterloo station and train quiet #Waterloo pic.twitter.com/PUP39VpWsr
— Lucie Speciale (@LucieSpeciale) August 7, 2017
Seven stations in south-west London will be closed during the works, according to Network Rail’s website. An average of 270,000 journeys are made to or from Waterloo every day.
Network Rail has said the project to extend the station’s platforms will allow longer trains to operate on suburban routes from December and provide space for 30% more passengers at peak times.
To ease pressure during the work, the old Eurostar platforms are being used at Waterloo for the first time since the cross-Channel train service relocated to London St Pancras in 2007.
Rail chiefs urged passengers to consider taking a holiday, working from home or travelling earlier or later than normal while the project was under way. But business leaders said this was not always possible, and the Federation of Small Businesses said traders would lose income, which they would not be able to recover even once the work was completed.
Network Rail’s chief executive, Mark Carne, has previously admitted “there are going to be days when the service is very difficult for people”.
First Group and Hong Kong-based MTR will take over the South West Trains franchise from Stagecoach on 20 August. The Waterloo work will culminate over the August bank holiday weekend, when it will be one of a number of large rail projects being carried out.
