Good morning, it is Monday the 20th of September, 2021
The last time new tube stations came to London
was in 2008 with Heathrow T5 and Wood Lane
That all changes this morning with Nine Elms
and behind me, Battersea Power Station.
As the number of stations on the London Underground
increases from 270 to 272.
Let's do it.
(upbeat music)
So, as suspected,
we've got two trains stabled here overnight.
So there's one on that platform
and then there's one on that platform
and that's gonna be our train.
(upbeat music continues)
Two minutes!
So train number one is saying Kennington.
It'll reverse at Kennington,
go around the loop, come back.
Second one out, is going to Edgware.
I don't know if it's going up the Charing Cross branch
or the Bank branch, but second train, definitely Edgware.
(doors beeping)
On time.
Leaving Battersea Power Station ... Station.
(doors beeping)
So this train will now reverse around the loop,
which means about a hundred people or so
have all got to go over the steps
and go to the southbound platform
and pick up the same train.
Also, Neil
I can't take all of the credit.
Adaption of what, sorry?
McKnight Kauffer's 1932 work,
The Arnos Grove extension of the Piccadilly line.
Brought up to date.
And you're giving these out for free?
I've got a limited number.
(Geoff laughs)
We're all gonna head over to the southbound platform.
But while we do that, this morning is Monday,
but I was actually sneakily here last Thursday.
There was a press trip,
so, I have already seen the new station.
So here's a quick rewind,
as we wait for our southbound train,
of everything that happened last Thursday.
So this is the Thursday before the Monday
when it really opened,
so we've gone back in time, slightly.
There's a press event,
but we're just retrospectively going back in time.
And I think we're going for a trip through the gate line,
down the escalators, onto a train.
Escalator going down.
Onto the platform that is super wide.
Platform island configuration.
Reminds me a little bit of Canary Wharf,
no big roundels, though,
just little small roundels to the side.
Battersea Power Station, look at it, in 12 minutes.
I think that's our train.
Oh my, we're at Nine Elms.
Is that Phil? Oh, Phil's here.
Wave hi, Phil. Thanks.
Lift is there.
So if that's west and east,
or should it be south and north?
I think they might define it as southbound and northbound.
So the lift is on the north end of the southbound platform.
There's a crossover passage here as well.
Chris is here from District Dave, IanVisits is here,
what have you boys spotted? What's going on?
I spotted a white-label covering something, just on this.
Brand new, unused.
What's it covering up?
It seems to say overground for outside interchange.
I dare you to unpeel it.
Very smart, isn't it?
Very snazzy, isn't it? Yeah.
Kinda reminds me of the Jubilee Line a bit.
Yeah, it does, yeah, just without the platform edge doors.
(train whirs)
So when the service starts,
I believe it's, what, five trains in the off peak
and six in the peak to begin with,
but that will later increase?
That's right, so we will open
with six trains per hour in peak,
five off peak, and then when the Bank blockade starts
in January next year,
we'll go up to around 12 trains per hour.
And then once the Bank blockade finishes
in about May next year, I guess it's going to be reviewed
in terms of customer usage and also how it effects the overall timetable
(announcer announcing)
The next station is Battersea Power Station, station.
I think we just went over the crossover, we've crossed over.
So we coming in on, the other side.
First time my foot is going onto Battersea Power Station,
station.
It's exciting, you get the roundel.
My name's Mike Liddellston, welcome to Battersea,
I'm the project manager for TFL here at Battersea.
Oh wow.
Yeah, it's a very..
Hang on so we got two sets of escalators,
so we got two there, We've got
And then two there. Two there, there's
And a lift as well.
There's 3 lifts open to the public, at the moment.
One taking you down from the surface down to ticket hall
and then two from ticket hall down to platform.
Okay, this is seriously impressive, it's enormous,
it's so much space.
Sometimes he used the word capacious,
I think today I'll use the word cavernous.
It's very roomy.
It's very clean, it's very modern,
it's very new, it looks awesome.
(train humming)
It's the outside world.
Out here, we obviously, this is now,
we're on Battersea's land.
Say in 10, 15 years time,
the only thing that you'll see of the tube station
is our eastern head house.
Around us will be, have high rise
and obviously at the back there,
we've got the iconic phase two,
which is the power station itself.
As you can see, if you look behind you,
you can see smoke coming out of the chimney.
So that is part of one of their biomass boilers
down at basement level that is generating electricity,
for the residents and the commercial.
TFL, I'm really, really, I'm actually, sorry,
I'm a have to do this,
but we have to rename Battersea Power Station
to Battersea Power Station, Station.
I'm sorry.
And it's a little bit like
when they did the Jubilee line extension,
where they sort of had sort of,
you could see from above, the tracks down below.
So there's a point here, where the escalators is,
where you can see from here, the minus one mezzanine level
down to the platform and the actual tracks
down on the minus two level, it's huge.
Battersea Power Station is huge.
Lovin' it.
I always maintain,
if you want to know the real information in the world,
talk to the nice staff that actually have to work here,
who have told me that this area here,
this will be a retail unit, that'll be like a coffee shop.
But instead of it being like a chain coffee shop,
they're trying to look to have
like, independent coffee shops or independent shops,
and then, down the back down there, where there may,
in a few years time, be another exit out to the street,
out to the shopping centre up in Battersea.
So there will be more escalators built
and another way out, a second way out,
rather than the one that there is at the moment.
Guys, top info.
So the Northern line we all know,
is already pretty much computer driven,
TBTC is that correct?
It is, yeah.
So how easy or complicated is it
to add in a new bit of automatically driven section
to the Northern line, what did you have to do?
So we run second gen on the existing Northern line,
that's effectively obsolete now.
The modern stuff is third generation,
The Thales TBTC system.
We had to integrate the third gen with the second gen,
so you had things like dual speed input output,
things like Kennington,
you've got a very complicated interface,
which doesn't exist anywhere else,
because four of them lines have third gen,
we have second gen, no one else has the two together.
And yes, very cool.
Just back on the platforms,
I was hoping they might be tube map up to date, there's not,
but the are, you can see there reverse here,
there are line diagrams, which is what you would expect.
And I just noticed that places like here,
Tottenham Court Road, there's a little white sticker
covering up a little tiny patch of purple.
Obviously ready to unpeel to say Cross ...
... I mean, Eliz P urp, that one, you know the one,
it's there, ready and waiting.
And having just said, there are no tube maps up,
I then came up, back to the concourse to discover,
that they've just arrived on site.
And the Tube Maps, and they're up.
It's very real, the little line is there,
the extension is here.
The Northern line extension to Battersea, is open.
This is a giant sticker, this is vinyl
over the original map.
In the old days,
it would have been like, enamel metal, right?
Yes, somebody would have come along with a bit of metal
and screwed it on with a new map on, probably.
It's just a vinyl sticker,
so if there any mistakes, they can be easily rectified.
Is that correct? Yes,
very useful that.
Yes, yes, if there any mistakes.
If any were to happen,
If any were to happen.
Under those, unexpected circumstances.
It doesn't say Battersea Power Station.
It doesn't.
Why does it? It's not giving the correct destination.
(doors beeping)
So leaving Kennington and we're now
on the first train into Nine Elms.
(doors beeping)
(passengers applaud)
Spontaneous round of applause.
And that's how to ride, the first ever train,
out of and into Battersea Power Station.
(upbeat music)
272 tube stations, it is exciting, right?
It's a fantastic day, Geoff,
I was here at five o'clock this morning.
There were about 150 people outside the station.
Many of whom were local residents,
many of whom were enthusiasts
and the atmosphere on the first train,
05:28 this morning was brilliant.
And it's just a wonderful day, to have these new stations
and this new line extension open.
That's it, short and sweet, thanks Andy.
Yeah, see you, take care.
[group announcing] Battersea Power Station, Stat ion!
I'm going for the jaunty angle,
so I've got my poster from Neil, thanks Neil.
That's Neil, with the replica poster.
Answered me own question, cause I spoke to someone,
trains from here, cause they go,
they join the step-plate junction at Kennington loop
can only go up the Charing Cross branch, so yes,
the map is correct.
It's interesting how on the inline carriage diagrams
it shows there is a dotted line, temporary service,
but with the tube map, it's solid line
and the dotted line isn't there, so that's interesting.
A lot of people asking,
will they ever split the Northern line into two?
Maybe, it's still all one line at the moment
albeit sort of running in two separate branches.
Also people asking about tube challenge, yes,
in effect it does reset the record to 272 stations.
However, because COVID, Heathrow Terminal Four Station,
currently temporarily closed,
so no record attempts taking place at the moment
and I'm not doing it anyway, so we'll see.
But yeah, oh and apparently, the Mayor's turning up.
(upbeat music)
Luke, that sounds like there's a band
and someones playing "Going Underground".
Yeah I know, it's amazing.
Why are you in my video?
Why you in my video?
No you're in my video.
They're a school, it's a school band.
It's a whole band, have you ever seen, actually we have.
Check it out.
(band playing)
(choir singing "Going Underground")
(crowd applauding)
And that is, Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station, Station,
Station, Station now open.
See ya.