Tram platform closed until further notice for repairs (From Croydon Guardian)

Tram platform closed until further notice for repairs

9:15am Thursday 20th July 2006 in

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Engineers will excavate at one of Croydon's busiest tram stations this week to resolve a problem that has seen the closure of one of its platforms.

Tramtrack Croydon who manage and operate the borough's tram service were forced to close platform one at East Croydon tram station on Thursday, July 6, after problems with the rail joint between the points on the northern side of the platform were identified as being more severe than originally thought.

It has emerged that Tramtrack Croydon had been monitoring the rail joints for two months prior to the closure of the East Croydon platform and had prepared a programme of measures to fix the problem based on what had been found wrong with the joints over those two months.

But a further inspection conducted with one of Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate representatives found that faults with the joint had become so severe that the planned remedial work was unlikely to resolve the problem prompting Tramtrack to close the platform and arrange for engineers to dig beneath the track to investigate the problem further.

"We don’t regard this as a major problem because we are continuing to run services as normal."

Roger Harding

Excavation work is due to begin this week and will establish the precise cause of the problem and in turn allow the tram operators to prepare a plan of action to rectify the faults.

Tramtrack has confirmed that the platform will remain closed until further notice meanwhile tram services that previously used the closed platform have been re-routed via the island platform.

Concerns have been expressed from a number of commuters with regards to overcrowding on the island platform, though Tramtrack say they are looking at a number of possible solutions to ease congestion on the platform.

Roger Harding, Tramtrack Croydon general manager, has moved to eased any fears that the problems will result in a long-term disruption of Croydon's Tramlink service.

He said: "We don't regard this as a major problem because we are continuing to run services as normal. But until contractors have excavated and investigated what the problems are and how long it will take to rectify we don't know how long the platform will be out of service.

"We are currently organising contractors to open up the blockwork and excavate down to the track slab beneath the rail to establish the precise cause of the problem and develop the most sensible permanent solution."