Kentish Town station closure

[wanstead]

londonist.com/london/transport/kentish-town-tube-station-to-close-for-a-year

Transport for London (TfL) has announced a year-long closure of Kentish Town tube station for essential repairs. The closure will begin on 26 June 2023 and last until an unspecified date "up to one year" in the future.

The closure is chiefly to make repairs to the escalators. The machinery has broken down on a number of occasions, and the ad hoc repairs have proven unreliable. Indeed, it was at Kentish Town that we snapped this photo a couple of years ago:

The year-long closure will not only be an inconvenience for the good people of NW5, but will also disrupt the journeys of some passengers of Thameslink, which shares the station. It's a popular interchange for people living in places like Hendon, Mill Hill, Borehamwood and St Albans. The Thameslink station will remain open, but the handy interchange with the Northern line will obviously not be possible (an alternative would be to change at St Pancras, but it's not as convenient).

TfL provides some interesting details about the glitchy escalators, which are 26 years old:

"The existing escalators, which are the most unreliable on the Underground network, were installed in 1997 and are bespoke to the station, making it difficult to source parts for maintenance and repairs. The new escalators will be the same model as those used on the Elizabeth line and throughout the London Underground network making sourcing parts much easier and this will lead to a reduction in unplanned station closures, improving reliability for customers. They are expected to last for around 40 years."

The year long closure will be used to make a few other alterations to the station, including the removal of the ticket office (no longer used), realignment of the ticket gates and a deep clean.

Diamond Geezer is also reporting this news. As a regular gig-goer at the Kentish Town Forum, this closure is going to be a pain in the proverbial! 

[Chris M]

Apparently announced today, Kentish Town station will close from 26 June for up to a year. This is primarily for escalator replacement, but the disused ticket office will also be removed, the gateline repositioned and the station given a deep clean.

The existing escalators, which are the most unreliable on the Underground network, were installed in 1997 and are bespoke to the station, making it difficult to source parts for maintenance and repairs. The new escalators will be the same model as those used on the Elizabeth line and throughout the London Underground network making sourcing parts much easier and this will lead to a reduction in unplanned station closures, improving reliability for customers. They are expected to last for around 40 years.

www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/kentish-town-underground-station-to-close-for-a-year
londonist.com/london/transport/kentish-town-tube-station-to-close-for-a-year

[Dstock7080]

tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2023/april/kentish-town-tube-station-to-be-closed-for-improvements-including-essential-replacement-of-both-escalators

TfL press release now:

[melikepie]

I'm not sure what tot title this as this thread is both a commentary to say Thanks Jago for the Kentish Town history video and also a general enquiry as it's through there I learned the station has been closed until due to general maintenance and cleanup and also replacing the escalators. He also says the NR station will remain open.

It's just occurred to me that although this is an interchange, there is no stepfree access. Is there any plans to rectify this? Probably not during the refurbishment works.

[Dstock7080]

As with many early-Yerkes Tube stations Kentish Town has a lift shaft but ends at a different level to the platforms, the escalator was installed to alleviate this and the lift was removed.

A question was raised in 2017 to the Mayor of London:
www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/step-free-access-kentish-town-station

[Chris M]

Yes, Kentish Town is an interchange but it still isn't near the top of the priority list for step-free access, in part because the two stations are managed by different organisations and neither is step free.

The LU station would, as noted in 2017, be complicated and expensive to make step-free. TfL's current priority for step-free access is filling in large gaps in the network, and Kentish Town is close to and has bus links to step-free stations at Finsbury Park, Caledonian Road and King's Cross St. Pancras. Additionally, Camden Town one stop to the south will gain step-free access when it is rebuilt.
The Thameslink station would be relatively easy to make step free, but because step-free access is not available to the tube station this reduces the benefits of it. Especially as both adjacent stations have step-free access and offer interchange to London Underground, with St Pancras offering step-free interchange to the Northern line the only destinations that a Kentish Town would unlock would be the Charing Cross branch. However there are only two step-free stations on that branch, Tottenham Court Road and Waterloo, and they can be reached via existing interchanges at Farringdon (for Elizabeth line) and London Bridge (Jubilee line). I don't know NR's priority metric but I would not expect to see step-free access here any time soon.

[Chris L]

Installing lifts on the Thameslink station would offer better travel options parallel to the Northern line.

The Camden Town scheme has to be a higher priority.

[alpinejohn]

Jun 29, 2023 9:15:49 GMT Chris M said:

Yes, Kentish Town is an interchange but ... Additionally, Camden Town one stop to the south will gain step-free access when it is rebuilt.

I fear given the current funding mess at LU/TFL there is no realistic prospect (this decade or next) of Camden Town being rebuilt.

At one stage the underlying driver for the rebuild plan was to facilitate splitting the lines. TFL have since realised that would result in total bedlam at Camden Town - forcing everyone losing through services to swap platforms whilst fighting their way past a similar flow of hacked off passengers forced to change trains coming from the other branch. The impact of splitting the lines on dwell time and platform safety without fitting PEDs would doubtless give rise to some interesting timetable planning and safety discussions.

I suspect the only reason Camden Town may get a minimalist make-over is to improve peak entry/exit issues at the station especially those associated with huge crowds drawn to visit Camden Town Market.

Whilst they have already had "plans" drawn up, plans may change yet again, so that does not mean it will rebuilt any day soon.

So yes if Camden Town is ever rebuilt with step free access, it would provide for some an alternative step free access option.  However as Kentish Town is actually going to happen and about to close - it seems a crying shame TFL did not at least decide to make passive provision for step free access at Kentish Town now, so that once funds become available the cost and importantly passenger impact could be minimised.

[Chris M]

There isn't really any passive provision you can make at Kentish Town other than not building something where the lift would surface in the ticket hall, and given that everything they're doing at that level is to make more space then it seems likely this will be happening. Everything else involves major civil engineering which is completely out of scope for what is just replacing life-expired escalators with new ones to do the same job.

Rebuilding Camden Town is a pre-requisite for splitting the Northern line, and the design is such that there will not be any need for flows of hacked off passengers to fight each other, but it is not the primary purpose of the the rebuild. The primary purpose of the project is to give the station sufficient capacity and remove the conflicts between passenger flows that exist currently - a split would not create any new flows or new conflicts it would just make existing ones worse. So if the line is split after a rebuild there wont be any conflicts.

Of course with TfL's finances as they are currently, the rebuild of Camden is not guaranteed. However that also means that it would be incredibly poor judgement to spend a significant amount of money one stop away that would both offer significantly poorer value for money, worsen the business case for and reduce the amount of money available for rebuilding Camden.

[jimbo]

Note that “upgrades at Camden Town station could help separate the branches of the Northern Line, adding 25% more capacity through stations in central and south London” included in 67 possible schemes in the May 2023 London Infrastructure Framework for funding by the National Infrastructure Commission, as agreed with pan-London cross-party support. link

Splitting the line would not result in 50% of passengers swapping trains at Camden Town for their current destination branch, only those aiming for a station on that branch. If they are changing to another line enroute, they may just change their interchange station from one branch to the other. It would make operating the line reliably much easier, but if the sub-surface lines are aiming for 32tph with all those flat junctions, I don't see why the Northern Line could not achieve a boosted service over the grade separated junctions of Camden Town.

[Chris L]

Not sure who produced/executed this sticker.

They obviously have no idea of viewing distances for the type used. It certainly be read from seats on the opposite side of the train.

If trains are not stopping the circle, station name and interchange should either have removed (preferable) or covered with a heavy red X. If deleted a big note could be included.

www.flickr.com/photos/187091281@N02/53203493944/in/dateposted-public/

[t697]

It is the normal size font for such an additional message. I agree it is rather small and easy to miss.
There are lots of quite big banners at station platforms though.

[Chris L]

Sept 21, 2023 16:20:43 GMT t697 said:

It is the normal size font for such an additional message. I agree it is rather small and easy to miss.
There are lots of quite big banners at station platforms though.

It may the normal size now but it shouldn't be. It's way too small to be read by anyone with normal eyesight. 

The thin lines across the station name are almost invisible (as on the diagrams above Elizabeth line doors).

Why is the Trains to Luton even there?

The banners are fine but a lot of new/visiting passengers rely on these diagrams.

I do wonder if the person doing the layout ever checks it at actual size.