Barking railway reopens, but only for passengers for now

Passenger services around Barking, in east London, resume today, 11 November 19, days after a GB Railfreight container train derailed at the station, c2c said. However, the announcement says nothing about what the reopening means for freight traffic to and from the Thames ports. Services restarting include c2c trains from Barking to Dagenham Dock, Rainham and Purfleet, as well as London Overground trains on the Suffragette line between South Tottenham and Barking Riverside. “Our teams have worked tirelessly to make sure that the line opened as quickly as possible, and I want to highlight their incredible efforts given the scale of the recovery required”, said Rob Mullen, Chief Customer & Commercial Officer at GBR Anglia.

Engineering teams had to rebuild over 1.2 kilometres of track, as well as bespoke points and signalling equipment, according to GBR Anglia. The group brings together passenger operators c2c and Greater Anglia and infrastructure manager Network Rail Anglia under one leadership team, as part of the transition towards Great British Railways.

The train, travelling from DP World’s London Gateway to Hams Hall, near Birmingham, partially derailed at around 13:10 on 23 October, blocking access to some platforms and lines. Much of the damaged infrastructure could not simply be fixed. The points destroyed in the incident had to be rebuilt from scratch, with new sections made to order in Wales, while severed signalling equipment and cabling also had to be replaced.

This story was originally published by RailFreight.com. Read the full story at RailFreight.com →