Gospel Oak to Barking line service resumes after freight train derailment damage repaired

The Gospel Oak to Barking line reopened today (February 19), nearly a month after a freight train derailed and damaged the track.

It derailed between Leyton Midland Road and Walthamstow Queens Road at just after 6am on January 23.

More than two and a half miles of the route between Barking and South Tottenham was damaged in the incident.

Network Rail's engineers have cleared the damage, replacing 39 pieces of rail, 5,300 concrete sleepers, 900 wooden sleepers, removing and replacing 10,000 tonnes of ballast during the track replacement and replacing custom-timbers at 10 bridges.

An investigation into the cause of the incident is ongoing.

Ellie Burrows, Network Rail's route director for Anglia said: "Repairing and effectively rebuilding the railway has been an absolutely mammoth task for our engineering team, but along with great support across the industry and supply chain, I'm happy that train services can return to normal. I am acutely aware of the disruption this has caused for passengers and our lineside neighbours and I'd like to say thank you for bearing with us while we completed the work."