Redeveloping the Oldest Station in London
Built in the 1830s, London Bridge is the oldest train station in London and one of the oldest in the world. Located south-east of London Bridge on the River Thames, it is managed by Network Rail.
London Bridge is also one of the busiest stations in the country, bringing around 56 million passengers into the city each year. The station is an integral part of the £7 billion Thameslink railway through the heart of London.
The redevelopment of London Bridge station included building new platforms to accommodate more and longer trains, building a new concourse, creating a better environment for passengers and reconstructing the track layout and signalling to increase capacity.
The station handles up to 42 million passengers every year, and the redevelopment project is expected to increase this to between 50 and 75 million people a year.
Project Outline
A major part of the redevelopment project was to allow Network Rail to introduce more Thameslink trains during week days: up to 18 trains per hour through London Bridge station.
Balfour Beatty was awarded the track remodeling contract, including a new signalling system to enable 24 trains per hour to through central London.
As a sub-contractor of Balfour Beatty, Sigma Networks was responsible for centralising almost 30 signalling systems into a single data centre. This included construction of the cabling infrastructure and fabrication of metal carriers.
Fibre data communications were also installed, together with access control and CCTV systems.
Challenges
Sigma Network's involvement in the London Bridge redevelopment project lasted for three years, from 2016 to 2019, and during this time we faced many challenges.
One constant challenge was working on older buildings and in very confined spaces.
The project also involved a great deal of custom metal fabrication to route all the cabling required by the data and control systems.
There were a great many Health and Safety issues associated with working around high voltage equipment, and in the midst of sophisticated train control systems.