PROPERTY NEWS: Revamped Farringdon station will provide Camden and Islington with Crossrail link

Published: September 1, 2011
by DAN CARRIER

THESE are the first pictures of the £6 billion pound project to revamp the cross-London Thameslink line and rebuild Farringdon train station.

Thameslink, which runs from Bedford through Kentish Town and on to Farringdon before terminating in Brighton, will meet the new Crossrail project at Farringdon.

As well as enlarging the Grade-II listed station, a new concourse will let people go from the Northern Line and the Thameslink branch straight on to Crossrail when it opens in 2017.

Network Rail project director Richard Walker has overseen this part of the project and says one of the major challenges – besides working in a listed building surrounded by busy Islington streets – is the fact they have had to keep the station open a minimum five days a week for regular commuters.

Mr Walker said: “The key thing is to design the work so we can operate a full train programme five days a week. This means making the most of the time at the weekends – we work 24 hours a day then – and using the night when the station would be closed anyway.”

Over the bank holiday weekend, Network Rail engineers moved a 600-ton crane into place to demolish a neighbouring building on Farringdon Road to provide more space for the new station.

The scheme will include extended platforms to allow new trains made up of 12 carriages – compared to the current eight – to operate from December.

Other work includes extending the station roof, a new entrance and concourse on Turnmill Street and a new ticket hall for Thameslink passengers. It will also include wheelchair-friendly lifts.

Mr Walker added: “Passenger use has gone up so we need to cater for this. It will provide a handy link to Crossrail for people in Camden and Islington.

“The north-south equivalent to Crossrail, it will cut congestion on the railway and Tube by allowing longer, more frequent train services to travel to and through London. By 2018 Thameslink will run up to 24 trains an hour, introducing a metro-style service through the heart of the capital.

“Once both projects are completed, Farringdon will become one of London’s busiest and best-connected stations with over 140 services per hour linking with destinations along the Thameslink and Crossrail routes, including Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports, and the wider London Underground network.”

Farringdon dates from 1863 and was one of the stops on the world’s first ever Underground line, the Metropolitan. It was renovated in the 1920s, the work including one of the London Underground’s trademark facades.