Watch: Network Rail installs 30m signal gantry over tracks in shadow of the Shard

As the clocks went back last weekend, over a hundred Network Rail engineers took advantage of the extra hour to install a huge new signal gantry that spans 10 of the 11 tracks on the approach to London Bridge station.

Network Rail is completely rebuilding London Bridge station over the next three years as part of the £6.5bn Thameslink Programme.

This Christmas and into the New Year period, when passenger numbers are at their lowest, parts of the station will be closed for 16 days to allow engineers to return to the site to finish the job by attaching new state-of-the-art signalling equipment. Replacing the current system, which has been in use since the 1970s, will dramatically improve reliability on one of the most congested railway lines in Europe and allow more trains to run through to central London and beyond.

 London Bridge facts:

• Over 117 million people a year go to London Bridge or through it to Cannon Street and Charing Cross – 54 million start or end their at London Bridge itself
• Platform 6 is the busiest in Europe serving 18 trains per hour
• The new concourse at London Bridge will be bigger than the pitch at Wembley, increasing passenger capacity by 65%
• London Bridge will be longer than the Shard is tall
• Up to 24 trains per hour will run in each direction, during the peak, between St Pancras and Blackfriars
• Up to 18 Thameslink trains an hour will run in each direction, during the peak, between London Bridge and St Pancras – currently there are none between 7.30 and 9am
• 178 years old – London Bridge is London’s oldest surviving rail terminus, first opened in Dec 1836