Southeastern services have resumed at London’s Charing Cross and Waterloo East after being closed for 22 days for engineering work.

While the stations were closed, engineering workers replaced nearly two kilometres of 36-year-old track. They also replaced switches and crossings south of Hungerford Bridge.

Engineers also renewed the wheel timbers, which are the equivalent of sleepers when going over bridges, and made structural repairs and then repainted sections of the steelwork on the bridge.

During the closure, which began on Sunday 26 July, workers also rebuilt sections of platform at Charing Cross station.

This involved removing 540 tonnes of concrete and installing more than 2,000 square metres of plastic reinforced with glass.

They demolished sections of all six platforms, installed new steelwork and laid new surfaces.

The closure was first announced in February, and also involved workers cleaning, treating and repainting the footbridge steelwork to protect it from the weather.

They also replaced window panels with self-cleaning glass that will allow more light into the passageways and which can be opened to improve ventilation.

Network Rail and Southeastern – which now work together as the integrated South Eastern Railway – planned the closure for 18 months, which enabled them to arrange for all this work to be carried out in one 22-day programme.

Completing the work in a single summer closure, when there are fewer passengers, helped to minimise disruption.

Network Rail has stated that the alternative options would have been sixty weekend closures or four separate nine-day closures.

We are pleased to have reopened the line between Charing Cross and London Bridge after 22 days of intensive work.

We know closing two of London’s busiest stations for more than three weeks caused inconvenience for many customers, I am sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience. Completing this essential work in one 22-day closure, rather than over 60 weekends, allowed us to carry out station improvement works that would, otherwise, have been impossible to achieve.”

Our teams replaced track and platforms dating back to 1990s, completed essential structural repairs to Hungerford Bridge (over the Thames) and Waterloo East station improvements.

Thank you to customers for bearing with us whilst we complete the works and thank you to the hundreds of colleagues who worked 24/7 through the high temperatures.

Scott Brightwell, Safety, Planning and Performance Director, South Eastern Railway