Two more stations open for business: Part 1.

Tuesday 12th December 2023

The seventh and eighth new railway stations for 2023 opened this week; on Sunday (Brent Cross West) and yesterday (East Linton).

I’ll tell you about East Linton in an upcoming blog, but for today it’s a visit to Brent Cross West.

Located between Hendon and Cricklewood on the Midland Main Line, Brent Cross West is served by four Thameslink all-the-stations stopping trains each hour between St Albans and the Sutton/Wimbledon loop and the half hourly semi-fast Luton to Rainham trains as well as peak hour extras to Orpington all of which provide handy quick links to St Pancras and stations in the Thameslink ‘core’.

The new station is a key ‘enabler’ for the wider £4.5 billion Brent Cross Cricklewood Regeneration Programme billed as the “the biggest redevelopment and growth programme Barnet Council has ever undertaken. It is one of the Mayor of London’s key growth projects, and amongst one of the most ambitious across Europe.” It will effectively create a new town called Brent Cross Town.

The underused industrial area south of the A406 North Circular Road will become a “a modern residential area, to become one of North West London’s top destinations for living, leisure, retail and business” including a “vibrant town centre providing 6,700 new homes, commercial and retail spaces, arts and culture facilities, greener spaces, and improved schools and healthcare facilities the area will be transformed, creating the perfect balance between city life and a place to call home.”

I took a look inside the nicely appointed Visitor Pavilion when visiting the new station on Monday with its impressive 3D model of the ‘New Town’ (which lights up from a tablet to show different elements of the scheme) alongside a huge screen showing impressive computer generated images of how wonderful it’s all going to be.

If the plans come to fruition over the next 30 years it will certainly transform the area with a new High Street, shops, schools, those 6,700 homes (aka blocks of flats) and offices as well as plenty of places to sit alfresco sipping lattes and Bubble Teas in what will be ever present sunshine according to the video.

Just like Barking Riverside and Meridian Water it’s good to see transport infrastructure going in even before the first block of flats has been completed. All of this lies to the eastern side of the new station where the entrance has been built…

… but the two office blocks which will slot in either side making for a snug fit as shown on the model (see below) have obviously yet to appear.

As well as the new station, the project has included relaying the four tracks (two ‘slow’ lines and two ‘fast’ lines) to create space for what are two very wide island platforms…

… as well as realigned and new sidings south towards Cricklewood, replacing a facility dating back to the 1960s, alongside which is also a new drivers’ and staff centre.

And there’s a new super wide overbridge giving pedestrians and cyclists the ability to cross the Midland Main Line for the first time at this location since it was built more than 150 years ago thereby linking communities on both sides of the station.

It’s been difficult to establish how much the new station itself has cost to construct due to it being part of this bigger project but it involved £419 million of Government funding to Barnet Council so it’s obviously in a different league to the other six new stations we’ve seen open this year with their two basic platforms, footbridge and lifts, and indeed the new East Linton.

Construction work on Brent Cross West began in late 2020 and although all-stations Thameslink trains are regularly operated by 8-coach trains, the new Brent Cross West has been built to accommodate 12-coach trains. The two island platforms both enjoy what are described as “unique steel canopies that have been specially designed for Brent Cross West”.

There’s no ticket office but there are three ticket machines …

… sited just before the extensive gateline.

On the other side of that are escalators, stairs and lifts to platform 3/4 for the fast lines (which was closed on Monday as it’s not normally used)…

… as well as to platform 1/2 for the slow lines…

… with two escalators and stairs one facing north and one facing south and two lifts.

There’s a waiting room at each end of the platforms – here’s the southern end…

… and here’s the northern ends.

There are free to use accessible toilets and baby change facilities on the ‘slow line’ platform 1/2…

… and space for a café, once footfall increases.

Obviously it has step free access and plenty of room for cycle storage including 70 spaces on the east side and 30 on the east side as shown below.

A new “transport interchange” (aka a bus stop either side of the road) on the east side will enable buses to stop directly outside the station.

The plan is to extend route 326 from its current terminal point at the Brent Cross shopping centre on the north side of the North Circular Road as well as divert route 189 on its way from Claremont Road to the shopping centre so it serves the new station.

These changes, along with others in the area impacting six other routes, are awaiting further developments of the road network as work on the wider project continues.

However, on the west side route 316 from White City to Cricklewood bus garage has been extended and now terminates outside the station entrance …

… on a new anti-clockwise one way loop.

As you can see from the earlier photos, the station entrances either side of the footbridge are perhaps the most impressive part of the new station and once inside you can’t help but be struck by the sheer scale of this new facility. Don’t think Reading Green Park or Thanet Parkway. Think some of the new Crossrail stations for size and scale, eg Woolwich, or those at the eastern end of the Jubilee line. For example, this is the vista as you enter the west side…

… and this on the east side…

… which includes a mezzanine level from where I’m assuming there will eventually be direct access into the adjoining office blocks.

For now there’s a rather bright mosaic tiled mural to enjoy.

Two words came to my mind as I marvelled at the scale of everything and thinking of the New Town, being: ‘future proofed’, which I pondered on X. Veteran respected railwayman Graham Eccles astutely pointed out in reply perhaps ‘over specified’ might be more appropriate.

But when you’ve got £419 million to spend, why not?

When it comes to transport infrastructure, they say, “build it and they will come”. In this case they’ve also got to build everything else as nothing is finished yet (other than that lavish Visitor Pavilion and a rather nice park to wander through among all the surrounding hoardings).

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

Comments are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.