Aerial photos and video – ‘positive progress’ made on restoring railway between Haywards Heath and Lewes after derailment

The company said on Wednesday, August 26, that engineers are making ‘good progress’ in getting the line ready for train services to resume on Tuesday, September 1.

The announcement comes two weeks after the derailment of three carriages of the Southern 2.24pm London Victoria to Eastbourne passenger service near Lewes station on Thursday, August 13.

Aerial photos, submitted to this newspaper on the morning of Thursday, August 27, show the work at the site nearing completion.

A Network Rail spokesperson said on August 26: “With over 80 per cent of the work already completed to rebuild the railway embankment, install replacement track and reposition signalling equipment, Network Rail engineers are confident of an on-time finish.

“The operation has involved: constructing temporary foundations and working platforms to support heavy lifting equipment; deploying specialist Kirow cranes to recover the derailed vehicles; recovering and removing all eight carriages from the site; removing damaged track and ballast; repairing and reinstating the embankment; installing new track and associated infrastructure; reinstating signalling and railway systems; completing extensive testing and final safety checks.

“So far, over the course of the recovery and rebuilding of the railway: four engineering trains have been used to transport materials to the site; 250 site trips by tipper trucks have been made 9,000 tonnes of Type 1 aggregate have been delivered to the site; four derailed carriages have been recovered; at least 5,000 hours of work has been carried out by teams across Network Rail, GTR and their contractors.

In total, Network Rail said 500 metres of track will be renewed by using a rail drop train. Some 850 sleepers will also be replaced across a section of embankment 160 metres long.

Louise Greaves, Infrastructure Director for Network Rail said: “This has been a complex and challenging recovery operation, but we are making strong progress towards our goal of reopening the railway for customers on Tuesday. With the heavy infrastructure work being well on the way to completion we can then focus our efforts on the final testing we need to do to reopen the railway safely.

“I’d like to thank Southern customers and freight customers for their patience and understanding while we complete this vital work.”