.. and a Happy New Year.
Underground Christmas
Monthly Archives: December 2015
Battersea Power Station Station
There’s a new document on the TfL website today, talking about the Northern Line extension upon which work has started and if it all goes to plan will be complete and open by 2020.
There’s just one odd thing we’ve noticed .. and that’s the name of the two new stations. They’ve all been marked as Nine Elms and Battersea on previous mock-up maps, but now it seems as if someone’s taken the decision to call the latter ‘Battersea Power Station‘ instead. Which is great … were it not for the fact that it’s ridiculous.
Battersea Power Station itself will not longer exist by the same the station opens, so it’ll be named after something that isn’t there (even if historically it is still known), and everyone will just call what it should be called anyway, which is ‘Battersea‘. Plus that fact that it’ll be the first tube station to have the word ‘station’ in the official names, and then you’ll be able to say in a sentence, “I’m getting the train to Battersea Power Station station”.
TfL have form for doing this though – why have a short name which fits better onto a small map, when three longer words will do instead? We can’t have ‘Vicarage Road’ on the Met as everyone will call it – no, it’s going to be called ‘Watford Vicarage Road’ instead because we’re all too stupid to know that it’s in Watford.
So … Battersea tube opens in 2020. Please remember to call it that …
(Also if we’re being really picky, we suspect that the new Northern Line will be dug deeper than the existing Victoria Line, meaning that that here it should go under the Victoria line, not on top of it. But you know … that’s really picky).
Battersea Station Station
Meet … Mapway!
Our exciting festive news which we’ve been working on for a while and can now be revealed is that we’ve teamed up with the nice people at Mapway. Formerly known as mxData, you might already have one of their Apps on your phone – The Tube Map App.
We’ve teamed up with them to provide some of the data (such as exits, and 3D Maps) that’s within Station Master so that the Tube Map app can have access to it as well!
And for people that have been asking us for ages “When will your App be on Android”, the great news there is that the Tube Map App (including the Station Master data from early 2016) is on the Android platform!
There’s more over on the Mapway pages with their press release, including “One of the features we’re especially looking forward to sharing with you, is the addition of accessibility information for London Underground stations. And this won’t be your usual step-free info, that’s for sure. Thanks to Station Master we’ll have all sorts of details about accessibility for wheelchair users, people with prams and even travellers with luggage! So you have a clearer view of how easy a Tube platform is to reach, depending on the situation”
We’re also working with them on other projects in 2016, which we’ll reveal at some point, but until then have a look at the Tube Map App if you don’t already have it, and Merry Christmas from the Station Master!
Mapway
Bank Upgrade
TfL announced today the go ahead for upgrading Bank station with work beginning next year in 2016. It may ‘only’ be the 4th busiest station in terms of passengers going through the gatelines, but it IS the Tube’s busiest station in terms of people going through the station as it is a major connection point.
Lifting straight from the press release, TfL are saying that “The £563m upgrade will increase the busy station’s capacity by 40 per cent, improving accessibility and reducing interchange times when it is completed in 2021. Now approved, the station becomes the latest in a series of major upgrades taking place across the Capital.”
And they’ve released a whole bunch of fancy images, the whole gallery of which you can can see on Flickr here. Now all we need is for the announcement that Camden Town has got the go ahead…
New Bank Station
A Tube map made of chocolate
Take ten people, a few tubs of Quality Street containing a few thousand brightly coloured wrapped chocolates – and you can make a Tube map out of them! Like this …
New Tottenham Court Road
The the new entrance at Tottenham Court Road has opened up (and Central Line trains are stopping again) at it looks magnificent.
TCR
Battersea Extension Underway
The first official shovel hitting the earth happened last week out at Nine Elms to mark the official start to the Northern Line Extension, even though preparatory work had been going on for weeks.
We found ourselves walking through Kennington though the other day, exactly above where the Kennington loop is, and found a site there where work has also started, along with a nice noticeboard explaining to local residents what is going on.
Your new Northern Line Extension should open in 2019 …
NLE Kennington Park Site
Waterloo Shell Entrance Closed
Here’s a change to the network that we didn’t know about until someone pointed it out to us – seems like it was one that TfL slipped under the radar and didn’t publicise much. The ‘Shell Centre’ entrance and exit at Waterloo has been closed, whilst building work takes place on the rest of the complex by the entrance, and the entrance has obviously been affected. It’s going to be closed for the next three years.
As far as we can tell, no work is being done to the Tube entrance itself, but it has been affected by the works.
Closed Entrance
Contractor Notice
New entrance at Tottenham Court Road
As previewed in this video here, one of the new entrances at Tottenham Court Road station (complete with fancy artwork and stunning glass canopy) is now open as of this morning.
We’ve already updated our 3D map to reflect this change. The rumours have it that Central line trains will also start stopping again officially as of Monday 7th December (but possible on the Sunday over the weekend too!)
Tottenham Court Road 3D
Which City?
A fabulous online quiz in the Guardian today – can you identify a city of the world by looking at the ‘plain’ (no station names) version of the geographically accurate map of the metro system for that city! It’s tricky .. this Station Master only got 9 out 11 right!
Geographical London