Extra carriages announced for trains to Waterloo

Date: 29/12/2011

Extra carriages are to be added to trains travelling to London's Waterloo station in a bid to ease overcrowding.

Transport Secretary Justine Greening announced government funding has enabled South West Trains to lease 60 additional coaches from May 2013.

Furthermore, platform 20 at the former Waterloo International Terminal will come back into use from 2014, meaning extra trains can run to and from the transport hub.

Ms Greening said: "Passengers travelling into Waterloo have to suffer some of the busiest trains in the country, with sardine-can like conditions on many peak-time services."

She said the changes will "help ease those conditions."

The routes to benefit from the improvements will be those travelling from Windsor, Weybridge (via Staines), Portsmouth, Southampton, Eastleigh, Reading, Hounslow and Alton.

Waterloo is not the only station to be experiencing changes, as Rail Minister Norman Baker recently approved over £37.5 million of funding to improve accessibility to sites up and down the country with the introduction of lifts and ramps.

Posted by Mary Treen