Morning!
It's a cold, grey, end-of-February day
in central London, Cannon Street
and if I just slide the camera around this way
Ah, there we go
The latest addition to the London Underground
The new entrance to Bank Station
which is very near Cannon Street and Monument Station
is open, behind that white van
Oh, there it is. Okay
Let's go have a look
(ambient music)
Whilst we wait for the fun and games to start, let's...
Here is Bank and all the exits and entrances
and you've got Cannon Street down here
and you've got Monument here
But here's the crazy thing
The DLR and Northern Line platforms
are actually beneath here under King William Street
and the new exit entrance we're here today, here
as you can see there's no arrow
that says Bank, is really close
It's like that close to Monument
It's quite close to Cannon Street
It's really near Monument
I think Monument and this entrance to Bank
are now the two closest entrances
I can see Cannon Street down there
I can clearly see Monument there
But it's the Bank entrance
It's taking you to Bank
Not Monument, not Cannon Street, but Bank
It just happens to be on Cannon Street
(ambient music)
So press has turned up, mayor's turned up
Andy Law's turned up
And we're doing none of that
just 'cause I'm feeling like a rebel
So we'll go for a quick wander round, a quick explore
and then I'll get an interview with someone from TfL
So let's have a wander
Okay, going down the escalators
Oh look, there's Luke taking a photo
You should be on a tram! (Luke laughs)
Why aren't you on a tram?
We're going down the first set of new escalators
There's three
Weirdly, it's so weird to see
they're numbered 29, 30 and 31
Does that now mean there's 31 escalators at Bank?
And behind me here, there's a glorious
sort of artwork-ish sort of...
It looks like...
I mean, it looks bronze
I don't think it's actually bronze
And that takes you down to a little corridor here
where it bends
This set of new escalators I didn't get their numbers
I'll get the numbers at the bottom where it comes out
in the corridor.
Yeah, there's escalators 26, 27 and 28 back there.
Okay, so this is now a corridor where on this side
you've got the original northbound platform.
And over here, as you know it opened up a while back
is the new wide southbound platform
So this is very much at the southern end of the station
If I come to where the filled in platform is
which is of course here, along here
Like King William Street is like above me
The northern line platforms run under the length
of King William Street
So the new entrance, this new Cannon Street entrance
very much at the the back if you're travelling north
or the front, if you're travelling south
at the Cannon Street southern end of Bank Station
(train brakes squeal)
Now then, from the filled in corridor
go down this new corridor
and then there's a sign that says, here we go
Dun dun dun dun!
Lifts.
Proper lifts
On that lift, there's a button going up
and on that lift there's a button going up and down
Minus nine?!
Is that minus nine, what?
I've just worked it out
'Cause look at the lift guide, yeah
'Cause that lift there I think
can you see that that's Lift F
and that only goes up to Cannon Street entrance ticket hall
Lift G, that side, goes down
'cause that also goes down to the DLR
Let's do that
So the minus nine is DLR level
Can you see?
And minus eight is where I was just normal level
So the lift just came up one from minus nine to minus eight
and zero is the way out
So we'll just pop down and see minus nine first
and then we'll go back up to zero
DLR platform
Hang on, which side is it
It's this side
Oh this is new.
So what was here before then?
Look, there's like a little...
That brings you out
Oh so right there is the escalator
that takes you up to Monument
Okay, that's interesting
So you could enter Monument Station, come down
follow the signs to the DLR
and then get the lift up to the Northern Line platforms
That just brings you out
to the DLR area
DLR train
And what that clearly means is that previously
there was this pokey old lift up on street level
you had to press a button to get access to
Look, it's here, it's here, it's here
(buttons beep)
Stand clear of the doors, please
Sorry about the flickering
Oh, sorry. Morning!
That's all right. Morning
And we're back out
Two lifts there, where we started a minute...
By the new gate line, and the new entrance
Oh and a closeup of the artwork as well
Hi, Hugh Hi, Geoff
Is this the end?
Is this the end of the Bank capacity upgrade?
The BCU is over, no more
Well yeah, I think for the publi
it is definitely the final phase
There's still a bit of paperwork to get sorted
the finances to close down.
But essentially from a public perspective, yeah this is it
This is the final phase
and now we've got 40% more capacity at Bank
So the OSD, we'll hand over to the OSD team now
and I think they're due to start in 2024 with destruction
We've started to engage with developers
to get that agreed and passed over
So yeah, that should be the next exciting
sort of phase for Bank Station
OSD is the oversight development?
Correct, yes.
Okay, and tell me what's happening
to Arthur Street with the little curvy road over there
Is that gonna be returned?
Yeah, Arthur Street
We're in the process of trying to get that agreed
and then once it's agreed we'll backfill that
and return the road
Work on the junctions as well
getting those back up and re-signalized now
with the new sort of agreed movements onto Arthur Street
So yeah, that hopefully should be shortly
Is it a bronze design?
It looks like a bronze panel, Hirsch
What is it?
It's bronze painted fascia panels
that lead you down into the below ground areas
and then form the ceiling of the intermediate level below
But you designed that? That's your...
Yeah, so we designed the whole station
So Wilkinson Eyre architects, we designed the whole station
Even all the tunnelled areas
New Northern Line platforms
the Central Line link, DLR escalators, all of this
But that's like my favourite bit
I dunno why
Which bit? The fake bronze
It really stands out
Yeah, it does, it does It's nice
It's a good feature on these kind of like neutral palettes
down to the tunnelled areas.
Back inside
Now I've made several videos
about the Bank capacity upgrade works
over the last few years, but the last two things to happen
before today actually I never made a video about
I only tweeted about them with pictures
'cause I was waiting for today to happen
with the entrance to open
And that is that one, there's the new escalators there
that go down to the DLR
They look like this
(ambient music)
But more excitingly, are the...
Can I say travelators?
Moving walkways? Walking moveways?
Which are there, and they look like this.
(ambient music)
I quite often do the shot where I'm sat on an escalator
I don't think I've ever done that
on a moving walkway travelator before
So I just thought I'd give that a go
Anyway, if the pub quiz question comes up, you know
how many travelators are there on the network
The answer is now two, and they're both at Bank Station
(ambient music)
It's still worth knowing by the way
that every single line diagram in this station
where the word "Borough" is, they missed the tick
and someone's had to come along
with a little bit of black tape
It's still there to this day
See that?
That's a little bit of black tape
Borough, tick
By the way...
Am I in shot?
By the way, the minute I mention this rages
'cause it's the same on Crossrail, Elizabeth Line
The purple escalators at all the core stations
The escalators have like an eco mode
Can you see that's going quite slowly at the moment?
But there's a red light here
there's a beam that goes across
and if I wave my hand through it, watch the escalator
watch the escalator, it will speed up
'cause you will walk through the beam
and then it goes up to full speed
So the fun game to play of course
if you want to see if you can ride the escalator
in slow mode, is to climb over that beam
and then you can ride the escalator more slowly
Weirdly, thanks Pat, my friend Pat turned up
I'm gonna climb over the beam, right? Watching?
And it won't speed up
It's still going slow
And then if you get on it'll then speed up
When you break the beam, watch
It'll then...
Pat's broken it now
There we go, at full speed!
(laughs) That's brilliant!
Could somebody let me know like
how much actual energy does that save?
Presumably that's an eco, energy saving thing, right?
(ambient music)
And that's kind of it
Bank capacity upgrade works, done, finished
New entrance open, come down, new lifts, new escalators
new gate line, new entrance exit out onto Cannon Street
from Bank tube station
Fully step-free, accessible
Press subscribe.
Thanks for watching. Bye!