*PA* The next station is Gatwick Airport *PA*
Morning, on the 3rd of April this week,
I'm travelling in April,
Gatwick Express came back.
Trains now running every half an hour
from Victoria down to Gatwick and to Brighton,
which is where I'm headed now this morning
with Chris, he's over there.
He's taking me down because there's a whole bunch of work
going on at Gatwick to expand and improve the station.
The South Terminal is back open again,
flights now operating again,
whole bunch of stuff going on at Gatwick.
Let's do it.
(train door beeping)
Morning.
(train engine whistling)
Can you see there?
Platforms Five and Six there's building work going on.
I think that's where we're going.
This is the Gatwick station project,
which will upgrade and improve
the country's busiest airport station.
At the moment, when it gets congested
it leads to knock-on effects and delaying trains.
There's a whole new concourse being built
over the existing tracks,
along with eight new escalators,
five new lifts and platform widening as well.
Andy gives us an introduction.
Prior to the addition of platform seven,
you had six platforms and it was an in-out system.
So you had entrance by
coming into the existing station entrance,
access to platforms, and then trains arriving
would traditionally exit via the existing overbridges
and that covered all of platforms one to six.
We're on the segregated walking route
so you're not exposed to any vehicles,
any vehicles over this side.
That's Andy, he's taken us on a tour.
We're gonna look around the existing station
and the new station.
What we need is an overview diagram
and I'm happy to have drawn a simplified version for you.
This is the official map,
but we'll use my simplified version
to navigate our way around the station building as we go,
look out for the red arrows.
Think of it as a bird's-eye view,
something, by the way, you can get
if you climb up the tower of a nearby crane.
So we're up here,
we're effectively just below the new roof level
of the airport entrance.
So this is a new concourse space that we're constructing.
When you look out over the new airport entrance space
you can see the new connection to the existing overbridges
at Gatwick, the two white hoardings,
that's where passengers will eventually funnel through
from the new entrance space into the existing
and off into the south terminal building.
(wheels squeaking)
(muffled voices)
So this is the existing ticket hall in Gatwick
which you probably know and love, with that gateline.
And all the gates are like wide double gates.
And then behind here you can see
There's a lot of construction work going on.
This is David.
You appeared in my Gatwick 35 video.
Yes, I did.
This building here was what,
and what is it gonna become?
So this building currently is our control point,
keeping the operation going here.
Eventually that will be knocked down
and there'll be another gateline installed here
to then complement our other gateline here.
So this used to be WHSmith.
We used to have some of the ticket office, WHSmith,
the pasty shop and the coffee shop
was basically all along here. Now it's just gone.
And it's all gone, all removed.
Flooring's all been done,
and what we'll end up with on this wall,
and we'll have all of our ticket retail machines
will be moved over.
We'll also have our new ticket desk retail area
for all customers to purchase their tickets.
So this whole area will be open
and much more free flowing.
(paddle mixer swooshing)
Sounding like a vacuum cleaner.
I think it was mixing concrete.
It's a paddle... Oh, they're screeding?
It's a paddle mixer.
Oh, hang on.
Here's a cutaway of the screeding.
Do you notice spikes on his feet?
So there's spikes on the underside of his feet
bit like playing golf
so he can stand elevated above the screed layer
and not disturb that screed as he's laying it.
I mean, I might borrow them to spike my lawn afterwards.
Right.
(laughs)
They're pretty pretty good. They're better than mine.
So you use them at weekends Well, Absolutely
To do home landscaping.
So the departure board screens are going,
there's that Gatwick Express signage;
David, why do I feel like you're gonna have that
and put it in your bathroom at home?
That's gonna go in the top of my lounge.
Okay, for real?
No! (groaning)
We're gonna have a look, see what we can do.
The one thing we've found is,
we are finding lots old Gatwick Express bits and pieces
coming up.
You could sell it on eBay. People would buy it.
We're just gonna go for a little excursion
just to check that the south terminal
is indeed reopen again.
This has been pretty much closed for two years.
It reopened on March the 28th.
I've got a link in the corner to Tom's excellent
'How to reopen an airport terminal' video.
The south terminal is back open again.
The last time I was here, the only part
of this whole building that was lit
was the pharmacy over there
because it was a registered pharmacy,
and they needed to keep it open.
So this whole building was dark.
It was all very quiet
with the single exception of the Boots in the corner.
So when you think of the ticket hall gateline at Gatwick,
you think of that main one where we were just at,
but some people don't know that there's actually two more.
There was this one here, which was the exit
for platforms one to four.
There was another one just down there,
which only I think I've ever used once or twice in my life
but they were additional gatelines here at Gatwick.
But both of these are now having work done to them,
'construction work in progress,' and they're being linked
through to the new, new, new, new, new,
I don't know why I've done five news,
but the big new way out
these corridors will now link through to that new area.
What's happened to the other one down there
is that been worked upon?
It's been done.
So what will happen to this gateline?
This gateline stays.
This has all been refurbished.
So this gateline remains, it's completed
and it's the boarding at the end will come down
and you'll be able to walk into and out of
the new airport infrastructure.
And out of this gateline.
Yea, we're gonna pass through this...
This here, this thing there,
nice.
These are the black girders,
this is the new bit they're building.
If I do a 180 standing on five and six,
Thameslink train just pulled in.
You can see these white doors here.
We were on the other side of that a minute ago
and it's gonna link through to there.
(train wailing)
So this is the swimming pool.
All new stations come with them as standard.
There you can see these little holes here,
that's for the jacuzzi jets,
Chris, Hey, don't lie to YouTube.
This is a lift shaft right?
It's a shaft.
Let's do a quick summary on lifts.
Here's your 20 second lift summary
with the help from Catriona.
It's not that Gatwick wasn't step-free accessible,
it had lifts before, but they were quite small,
platforms three and four only had one lift.
So if it broke down, you had to go via three bridges
Or a hall link Correct.
But it's the capacity of the lifts.
Cause they're quite large, aren't they?
Yeah. This is improved vertical circulation...
Hang on, hang on. Improved vertical circulation.
Yes.
I love that phrase. Okay.
Improved vertical circulation and at Gatwick,
our main aim really is to improve the planes-train
and train-planes experience.
The plane to train and train to plane,
you've given me two catch phrases in one short video clip!
But how many people are gonna fit inside one these lifts?
10, 20, 30, 40?
46.
46 person lift.
Correct
Much more capacity for step-free access at Gatwick.
(muffled voices)
Are we going over this to get to platform five and six?
Into the sunny sunshine onto platforms five and six.
Is this the old edge of the old platform Andy?
I have, but one main question.
My burning question is,
how have you been able to widen this platform?
Where did the space come from?
Was there not...
Like how was there space for you to move the tracks?
Track six has been completely realigned.
So prior to the start of our work, there was a wide way
between seven and track six
that allowed us to slew the track over,
to accommodate the new foundations
for the airport entrance to instal the two new lifts
and two new 46 person lifts and the associated escalators.
At this end of the track,
we actually started off on the scheme
with following the original alignment
back into the switch and crossing just by that stop board.
But through out the scheme, we've actually changed it.
There's a new alignment now,
that runs underneath that signal gantry
and ties into a turnout in track seven.
And what that gives you is a wider platform
but it actually also gives you far more efficient services
through the station that will result
in a five minute train journey saving
on your lines from Brighton up to London.
(train whistling)
This red line is, oh, the old yellow line,
that's the old...
Edge of platform on the...
That's the old edge.
So that's the new edge, but as it goes further down
that way, you can see it goes wider and wider and wider.
And here you've got two new escalators going up here.
But how many escalators...
Four on this platform. Four here on this platform
How many on other platforms?
Four on seven as well.
So eight new escalators in total to take you up
to the new area.
Right.
And that is all the construction work
taking place at Gatwick Airport.
It's gonna be finished by March 23, Andy?
March 23.
12 months time that will be done.
So thanks to Andy, thanks to Catriona, thanks to Chris.
Give us a wave guys.
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See you soon, cheers.