Count with me
two ... five ... eight ... zero ...
That is the new total of stations in Britain
as of today, the 10th of December, 2023
because Brent Cross West, so new, and in London
it's even on the brand new Tube map
It's open today. It opened this morning
It's lunchtime now
but, I shall immediately wind you back
to three days ago
I was here on a press trip last week
to look around the brand new
Brent Cross West Station
(tape rewind noise)
Yeah, flash back a few days
This is last Thursday
All the orange high vis here
It's a press visit, it's a really windy day
so there's probably wind coming through
this grill right now
And we're gonna go for
a look around the new station
The new Brent Cross West Station
in the London Borough of Barnet
is in between the existing Thameslink stops
of Cricklewood and Hendon
There are four platforms, but for most of the time
only two will be used
and is easily the most impressive new station
that's opened recently, as you'll see
as we take a look around.
So we're on the western side
there's two lifts over there
for step free access
They're just cleaning
doing a few last minute things there
So we're all going up the escalator
to the overbridge, the footbridge instead
Wow, that is a footbridge, overbridge
that goes all the way across
Basic setup
There's an entrance-exit on both sides
and this footbridge is gonna be open all the time
So it's a public access although it's a station
So even in the middle of the night, at weekends
you can cross between the two sides
It's a handy way for
local people to cross through that way
So I've been to several new station openings this year
Some of them are just like single platforms
on a single track branch line, this isn't that
This is seriously impressive when you see, ta-da
this behind me
the whole gate line area back there
There is a lot of space here
So the gate line is there
So if you were walking across to just change sides
you wouldn't even go into the gate line
That is seriously, that is a lot of space
The question which many will ask is
is there a ticket office?
I can't see one.
There is clearly... There's a...
what we're labelling as a staff room,
a staff-only room here.
It will be permanently staffed.
There will be people here 24 hours, 7 days a week.
Over here there are just three ticket machines, just there.
I cannot see a ticket office.
And it is in zone three.
So Cricklewood is in zone three,
which is one stop to the south.
Hendon, which is one stop to the north
is border of zone three and four.
The new Brent Cross West is a zone three station.
(train whooshing)
There's an outside bit.
I wanna call it a veranda.
It's not a veranda, what would you call it?
(indistinct) Okay
(indistinct)
Just like an outside bit- A viewing gallery.
Almost like a viewing gallery.
It enables them to clean the windows,
but it gives us a really good view down onto
the tracks and the trains.
(train whooshing)
(indistinct)
I think the fast lines are on every street.
That's a northbound Thameslink.
And those are the local platforms there.
The fast platforms are here.
Now, there are platforms that side as well,
which won't normally be in use,
but they can stop trains there if Thameslink
do need to do that.
And amusingly, I just got word
that on opening day on Sunday,
they will be stopping some trains there
just because they can, as a test.
But usually you'll always use these platforms here.
Hang on.
If I tap my Oyster card,
is that gonna register me as a trip?
I think it will do.
Are you on pay as you go?
I'm on pay as you go.
If I tap out again, it'll then max fare me.
I'm not gonna tap.
Normally I tap just for the fun of it,
but, okay.
Don't tap, Jeff, don't tap.
Beep.
Just pretend I have, there we go.
So we're on the concourse bit after the gate line.
Over there is three and four,
which is where the fast lines are.
Normally Thameslink won't stop there,
they will sometimes.
One and two over there.
There's a set of stairs and a single lift down
to three and four over there.
And there's two sets of stairs, and two lifts,
two lifts, excellent, two lifts,
down to platforms one and two over there.
Which I think is where we're going now.
We're on platform three and four,
which is actually the express platforms.
This is Keith.
I wanna ask you just about the stopping pattern.
Am I right in thinking,
that everything that currently stops
at Hendon and Cricklewood
will also stop at Brent Cross West?
That's right.
How many trains per hour? All that kind of stuff.
Yeah, so during the week,
it'll be in the high peak,
up to eight trains an hour,
and they would generally be trains
that were run from Luton to Rainham.
There'll also be some Luton to Orton trains.
They're purely in the peak time.
And the majority would be the
St Albans to Sutton services
of which, two go round via Tooting,
two go via Mitcham. Okay.
So six trains in all is the general
cooling pattern off peak.
So... and that's Saturdays as well.
But the platforms I know are 12 car in length.
They're like quicker dependent are only
long enough for eight cars.
So might there in future be scope for like having
a skip-stop service of a 12 car train here?
Is that a possibility?
Yeah, this station is built to be future-proof.
So we know from day one passenger numbers
will be quite low
but it will start to grow
as the development grows.
And what the 12 car platforms allows to happen
is future capacity to stop some
of those fast trains if the demand is there.
This is Brent Cross West Station,
the first brand new mainline station
in London for a decade.
(train whooshing)
We've come to wander down the,
the local stopping platforms.
Platforms one and two.
Here they're saying what is an empty shell.
This would be a retail unit, IEA coffee shop.
And they're saying they would rather get somebody local in
so not just one of the high street chains.
But retail unit, currently empty.
But as the station develops, some footfall increases
and people use it over the weeks and months ahead.
Hopefully something will appear there.
And around the corner there's toilets,
accessible toilets,
and baby change and a help point right there,
which is covered up at the moment.
But toilets, yes.
(door opens)
I have genuinely used the toilet.
I'm not the first, clearly.
There's signs that...
(door closes)
other people have been there.
So, thanks. Thanks, Keith.
Keith's holding my camera.
The toilets work.
(train whooshing)
So as of Sunday that'll be stopping here.
You're from Barnet Council?
Yes. I just wanna know
really briefly over there,
over the way, we're going there next,
but you've got Brent Cross Town-
Yes. Is that right? So that's
a major...
It's a major development
where we're gonna have over 6,000 new homes.
Okay.
We're gonna have Sheffield University campus.
Okay. We're gonna have student
accommodation. And we're gonna have lots
of new exciting businesses and retail shops.
So it's a whole new town.
So it's not just the station,
there's that development
that's been taking place as well.
There's a whole big development there
and all of those people hopefully
will then have great transport access
using this station.
(people chattering)
And to finish up our tour, we've come across
to the eastern side where there's some
fancy artwork there.
Same there.
Welcome to Brent Cross Town. Oh my goodness.
No, the artwork goes all the way down the wall.
Okay, that's nice. Okay.
And there's a double escalators here,
like a mezzanine halfway level and then double escalators
and steps down as well.
And the lifts must be there.
So where are the lifts that get from...?
Oh, the lifts go all the way down.
Oh, you can get out like halfway.
Oh, and there's this down here as well. Okay.
This is really nice.
Okay, this is the posher...
the posher entrance-exit side.
Hanging baskets.
Okay.
And there's a fencing panel up here,
but we can't go through it.
This will be very much open on Sunday.
Oh, those bus stops are new.
Brent Cross West Station.
I can see there is the name
and that leads over into the development and beyond.
I'm gonna have to come back here on Sunday.
(people chattering)
So the orange is off. We stepped
outside by the entrance here.
Light is fading. So this was Thursday.
I've popped out at the eastern entrance.
I'm gonna walk over there through the
town development and go and find
the Northern line.
But we'll go back to Geoff on Sunday.
(tape rewind noise)
So that was Thursday, it's now three days later, Sunday
There's a lot of activity going on up here
I've spotted my friend Chads with a waistcoat
I need to go and have a look at. It's also been raining
Weather is not good today
I just wanna go and use the lifts real quick
because I didn't get to use the lifts on Thursday
So there's lifts here. Don't close, doors
There's a bike rack over there
there's a bike rack on the other side as well
And if I just get to the button real quick.
Footbridge, there's the mezzanine level
we spoke about
There's the street
I will go to footbridge
Standard lift
I don't think the platforms have level boarding
I suspect it's gonna be the yellow ramps
I'll check in a second. But we're now at the
where's the mezzanine on the footbridge?
( Steel drum music plays )
Are these cinnamon buns?
These are cinnamon buns
Brent Cross West Cinnamon Buns!
Yes, they are
Is that a thing now?
(train whooshing)
I've bumped into the person that likes
to make his own custom waistcoats
Chads, hello
Hello!
Last time we met, Bond Street, Elizabeth Line
Yes.
And you were like "Elizabeth Line waistcoat".
This time ...
Thameslink.
Can we see this?
You've got the Thameslink logo in there
and this is the seat fabric
Yes
From class 700 trains with...
with the bars and arrows on the buttons.
I... Yeah.
Are you just gotta make waistcoats forever
of all the talks ... of all the train lines
Well it's only when they make new stations
So the more stations get built, the more sewing
I have to do
Are you going to East Linton in Scotland next week?
No, I mean London stations is probably actually
No no no no, now you're just
Now, you're just making the rules up
Yeah. _ Okay, alright.
I've got S stock plans and Belmont plans
but there's no... there's no deadlines for them. So ...
Do you know about the new Central line?
New Central line, new Piccadilly line
new DLR as well
Come to the platforms because
on Thursday all the cones were lined up here
and now you can see
just how wide the platforms are
I didn't actually get them on camera on Thursday
but I was chatting to one of the engineers
and they had to do a lot of prep work
because, as you can imagine, you can't just
plug in two other platforms
because there's a second one over there
They had to like, you know, move all the tracks
You have to like almost bend the tracks to sort
of enable you to put the platforms in
So a lot of the money
that was spent on making Brent Cross West was realigning
tracks that to move some sidings and stuff
to build this very impressive station.
I've gone like that because
the rain is now coming in.
But I just wanted to come to the end
of the platform.
And how much have you seen a passing train here
as in one stop
Here we go. End of the platform
Oh wait, rain on lens, there's also a waiting room
I didn't come in here on Thursday
Oh, it's warm and dry in here
It's really wet and miserable out there
In fact, there's actual light
there's like heated strips up there
I can feel the warmth, that's really nice
Have you stood under the heaters?
You can... toasty warm waiting room
And also on Thursday
the escalators weren't in action
but now they are
I could hear a band playing
Earlier, if you hadn't been whamageddoned
that popular Christmas game we like to play,
up by the Christmas tree up here
they were actually playing
wham Last Christmas on a PA
So if you hadn't been whamageddoned
it like took out like hundreds
of people in one fell swoop, it was very funny
And back in the concourse note
that on Thursday when we were here
these gates went up
These lead down to platform three and four
so people can't accidentally
wander down to the wrong
what are normally the express platforms
should go over to there to one and two
So these gates are in place
It's so huge
There's so much space. A lot of space
All right, it's time to leave
On the right platform
this time at the northern end
Platform 1 54 is coming two minutes down to 56
It's slightly confusing today
because the Thameslink core is out of action
So everything's terminating at St. Pancas
just to make it more interesting
It is an awesome large new station
And get on the train