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Norwood Junction station upgrade

We’re proposing to upgrade Norwood Junction station to provide more frequent and reliable services, as well as a modern, accessible station fit for the 21st Century.

The proposals are a key part of our long-term plans to unblock the railway bottleneck in the Croydon area, to run more reliable and more frequent services on the Brighton Main Line and its branch lines.

CGI of Norwood Junction station platforms

Programme revision

Further development of CARS (Norwood Junction) has been affected by issues such as the significant uncertainty about future passenger behaviour, and demand following the COVID-19 pandemic and funding constraints following the Governments 2020 Spending Review.

Given the significant investment required to deliver this scheme, we are now taking time to consider how the pandemic may affect passenger behaviour and travel patterns in the future, and how any such changes should be reflected in infrastructure investments such as this.

Our proposals

  • Modify the existing track and platform layouts
  • Provide a track layout that allows more trains to run through and stop at the station
  • Reconfigure the platforms to provide dedicated island platforms for northbound and southbound services
  • Provide dedicated tracks away from the platforms, for fast non‑stopping trains.

Lengthen and widen platforms

  • Lengthen platforms to allow full length (12-car) trains to stop and open all their doors at the station.
  • Widen all platforms to provide more space for passengers.

Provide step-free access

  • Provide two new footbridges, one with lifts to provide step-free access to all platforms.

Upgrade the signalling

  • Upgrade the signalling system to give our signallers the ability to recover the service more quickly when delays occur.

The benefits

Our proposals for Norwood Junction station would deliver regional and local benefits.

More frequent and more reliable services

While the proposals form a key part of our wider plans to unblock the Croydon bottleneck, they would also have benefits as a standalone project, helping to improve reliability and run more frequent services.

Increased station capacity

Widening and lengthening the platforms would provide more space for passengers to wait and get on and off train services.

Providing two footbridges would reduce congestion and allow passengers to move more freely through the station.

Keeping people on the move

We would look to start these works before other works for our wider proposals to unblock the Croydon bottleneck and upgrade the Brighton Main Line. Upgrading Norwood Junction station first would provide the ability to move more trains and people while we work at other locations on our wider proposals. Delivering step‑free access earlier would also provide significant benefits for local station users.

Managing impacts

We would work with train operators to run as full a service as possible through Norwood Junction station during the proposed upgrade. We propose to retain four platforms throughout construction and install the new footbridges first, to provide improvements for passengers as quickly as possible.

As we develop the detail of our proposals we will continue to engage with residents, businesses and passengers to make them aware of our proposals and the potential benefits.

Public drop-in events

In June 2019 we held four drop-in events to give local people and passengers the chance to view our proposals for the station upgrade and speak with the project team.

A total of 144 people provided feedback on our proposals. Passengers, residents and the community are overwhelmingly supportive of the proposals and 94 per cent of respondents said they either ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ with the plans to upgrade the station.

Some of the most common comments were:

  • support for the proposal
  • suggestions for station design and platform layout
  • a desire for improved train services
  • queries about the impact on passengers; and
  • requests for more information.

We have addressed the most commonly raised concerns in our feedback summary report below.

Summary report

Next steps

Our current proposals for the station are likely to be constructed entirely within the railway boundary and we would look to seek consent for these through the usual planning process.

Currently these works are not proposed to form part of our Transport and Works Act Order application for our other proposed upgrade works between East Croydon station and the “Selhurst triangle” which we have been consulting on. .

The proposals for Norwood Junction station are currently unfunded, as are the wider proposals to upgrade the Brighton Main Line. Over the months and years ahead we will continue to make the case for investment on the Brighton Main Line railway.

Contact us

For more information on our proposals you can email us at crsouthern@networkrail.co.uk. You can also visit our contact us page or call our 24-hour national helpline on 03457 11 41 41 or you can contact us on Twitter at @NetworkRailSE

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