As Waterloo Station Readies For The New Year, RMT Warns of `Massive Pressure' on Services

by Benson Agoha | In Woolwich

* Waterloo's New Balcony gives a good view of the concourse below.
(Credit: Wiki)

Even with the changes taking place on the transport network, RMT workers Union is warning of massive pressure on services in 2016, especially as Waterloo Terminal is set to become the first transport terminal in Europe to handle 200 million passengers.

The Transport union RMT was responding to a report in the Independent this morning that Waterloo is on course to outstrip Paris's Gare du Nord and become Europe's busiest transport terminal. The report said a combined rail and tube usage is set to hit 200 million a year in the coming year.

The Waterloo Station Concourse has had a new balcony added in recent years and it's access link to the Waterloo-East Station modernized.

The next big terminal close to Waterloo station is the London Bridge which is also being rebuilt with additional tracks and platforms terminating into the new London Shard.

Warning of the pressure on services, RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said today: "These latest figures show the massive pressure that both rail and tube services are under as demand outstrips capacity against a background of cuts to staffing and maintenance. It has left services dangerously overcrowded, constantly on the edge of breakdown and desperately short of staff to deal with these surging numbers. 

"‎With more train companies threatening to axe guards , and with another 800 tube station staff set to be removed early in 2016, we are staring a major disaster in the face if we keep trying to cram more passengers into a system already busting at the seams. 

"RMT will be stepping up the fight for jobs and safety across ‎Britain's transport services in 2016 as the pressure on available capacity escalates to breaking point."