Good morning, those blue holdings there on Arthur Street,
I'm just by Monument/Bank Tube Station,
'cause that is the way into the Bank capacity upgrade works.
In January of this year,
they closed the southbound
Northern Line platform here at Bank,
they're building a whole new one.
They're putting in a whole new concourse,
travelators, lifts, new station.
A whole bunch of work is going on.
It's due to open up in mid-May.
So we're at the halfway point
and TFL said, do you wanna come in
for a sneak preview of what we've done so far?
Yes, please. Come on.
Yes. I was first here, back in 2018.
That's when the tunnelling was underway.
And just a few weeks ago in January,
I visited the old platform at Bank
before it closed for the last time ever.
The current Northern Line closure
is scheduled to last for 17 weeks.
Mid-May is when TFL is saying it should open up again.
And a small group of us, wearing our PPE of course,
got to go down inside to see the works in progress
where a huge amount had already been done
in a short space of time.
We're starting by going into what would be
the new Cannon Street entrance just here.
This is where, if you look back on Google Street View
I've mentioned this before, it used to be a McDonald's,
but this is the way in around the back.
(machinery whirring)
We've come down a lot of steps
and this is the dramatic moment
that we first go onto the new platform.
Like there it is, ooh (machinery whirring).
Let's come down here. Hang on.
We'll go for the super wide shot.
Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready?
Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready?
Ah, nice.
There's a thumbnail (machinery whirring).
In the briefing we had upstairs just now
I was the one, like the annoying school kid,
asking the awkward questions.
One of my awkward questions that I asked the team was,
"how wide is the new platform here?"
Because there's like, there's one at Euston
on the Northern Line,
and there's one at Angel,
I just wanna know is this the same width to you,
is it wider?
Have you got a tape measure?
Nah I don't have a tape measure on me
Can we measure it?
We can definitely get you the figure.
How wide is it?
I think the big thing to notice here
it is very wide in terms of a platform.
But as Ian was explaining before,
what defines the dimension really
is the number of services that we have take through -
Right.
The area.
What, obviously, the biggest -
our concern is creating space for customers,
but certainly that's how we define the design.
(machinery drilling)
Well, hang on a second.
There's a hole.
There's the platform.
There's a hole with a platform under the platform.
Ceri, why is that down there?
It's a platform invert carrying all the requirements
for the utilities that we need
to run the operation all underground.
Is that on all new build stations
and platforms do you think?
It's on 90% of stations across the piste.
You just won't notice.
Yeah. There's a platform invert.
Yeah. And it takes all of the utilities
underneath the platforms that you stand on every day.
Let's ask you this, Huy.
Where's the existing southbound platform that was -
Yeah. Just on the right hand side.
That's what we're going through next.
Okay. So south is which way sorry?
Is that way.
That way.
That's the north end.
That's the north end? - [Huy] Yeah, yeah.
And that's the south end?
I've losing my own direction.
And so trains will be coming this way
on the right hand running.
They'll be coming this right way.
This way. Yeah, right, follow my hand people,
they're gonna be coming, chugging along this way like that.
All right. Okay. That now makes sense. Right.
(footsteps echoing)
So we've got some new escalators here.
There's three here behind me.
These take you up to a mezzanine level,
which turns through 90 degrees.
And there's another three escalators
and that takes you up
to the new Bank Cannon Street entrance.
So, six escalators at this end.
Okay, and now the exciting part,
we're walking through after the escalators
into the moment of the old running tunnel.
So. Wow.
Let's go. Let's go this way.
So this is the - I'm standing where the tracks used to be.
The tracks were here.
And if I just shuffle over this way,
this is the old platform.
So old platform.
And until a few weeks ago, trains were running here.
That's quite noisy, sorry.
And then just to give you context,
the northbound tunnel,
and you can see here they've opened up a new wide area here.
The northbound tunnel is here.
So let's do a 180.
Existing northbound, old southbound, new southbound.
(machinery noises echoing)
Do you see here they've started to instal
the new white panelling of the side of the platform.
This is what it looks like behind.
(steel clanging)
You alright? - [Geoff] Morning.
Huy's back. Huy, I'm very excited,
we're clearly on the spot
where the old running rails used to be.
That's right.
There's some old tiles up in the ceiling up there.
What are those - so the original,
maybe original City and South London Railway tiles?
Yeah, yeah, I believe so, yeah.
Maybe. And then this bit here,
you can see the cast iron rings
of the original tunnel,
again, dating back, what year would this have been?
1920s.
1920s. Yeah.
(hammering)
That's the press office, don don doughnuts.
This is 125 year old running tunnel.
If you're gonna speak Claire, I'll put you on camera.
This is the 125 year old running tunnel, yeah.
Yeah, she's gonna tell you about that.
Oh okay.
That's about 125 years of dust.
What's happened?
125 years of dust.
(Geoff laughs)
You're not gonna wash your hair now, are you?
I'll sell it on eBay.
So this is the City and South London line link 1925
which you're probably familiar with.
So this, I think this was extended up to Euston 1925.
And this is the section of abandoned railway
that's gonna be left behind at the end of the project,
that I'm sure you're probably likely
to be wandering around at sometime in the future.
So we're basically following Princes Street.
So you can see going straight up Princes Street
and then turning the corner up to Princes Street.
So that was the speed restriction on the corner.
And we've basically smoothed out the new running tunnel.
So it's to a left hand side and it comes in,
it's slightly longer,
but it'll be quicker actually getting physically
into the station.
Whilst I'm fascinated to see
what a wall panel looks like before it's put up,
the area I'm in now is an interchange area which is new.
So the new running tunnel is there.
The old one is there.
And then behind me here is the link through.
They're not running yet.
I don't think they're gonna be open in May,
it will be later in the year,
but travelators, woohoo, are coming to Bank Station,
a pair of travelators, walking move ways,
what you gonna call them.
And that will take you through
to the Central Line down there.
So there's one side.
There's the other side.
Think of the connection at Waterloo to the Jubilee Line.
I'm told by the way,
the technical team here are saying,
I have to refer to it as a moving walkway,
as the other name is, like, a brand name, so.
But I'm walking down the the middle bit,
the non-moving part, the in-between part
of the moving walkway.
Central Line ahead.
(indistinct chatter)
We're walking up some new escalators.
There's three here at the end of the travelator
which takes you to the new Central Line.
I'm counting in my head,
that's nine new escalators we've seen so far.
Told by Iain that there's another three somewhere.
So there's 12 new escalators here at Bank
on top of the escalators that were previously here.
Now, I can't remember off the top of my head
how many escalators there were,
but Iain does reliably inform me that Bank,
so this will be like a brand new
pub quiz question for trivia,
Bank will be the station
with the most escalators on the network.
Yes?
Yes. - Yes
I'll flash that number on screen now.
(gate squeaks) (indistinct chatter)
I thought that was it.
I thought we were on our way out.
They're like, "no, no. Let's go for a walk
down the track to see the other end."
Heck yes.
(truck engine noise) (clattering)
Just casually walking along the new bit of track,
in the new tunnel, bit of echo.
We're gonna go down and see where it -
where the junction was,
where they broke it away
from the original bit of the Northern Line.
This is insanely cool.
There's a video three, four years old,
where I first came down here
when they were first constructing this.
And there's a point where I came
down some steps and down a shaft.
That shaft is now above me, above me, that leak.
Can you see?
Thank goodness for the wide-angled lens.
That shaft there has now all been completely filled in
and behind me there are the steps
that I walked down in that video
that takes you to Arthur Street.
That's all now filled in.
That's not being used anymore,
but all the equipment and everything
was brought down through this shaft.
That is amazing to think that we were here
and now it's got tracks
and it's a proper running tunnel.
And that way will be the end,
which I think we'll wrap up the video,
when we get to the bit where the southbound track
splits away from the original southbound track.
(indistinct chatter)
(clanging and hammering)
This is the furthest extent that we're allowed to come.
So behind me here you can see
there's a light coloured wall here
and there's a dark coloured wall there.
Behind that dark coloured wall is the old bit of track
which is just gonna be left there unused.
This is looking south, okay.
South, the trains going that way towards London Bridge,
and then just further down
is where they would've merged together,
but it's not actually a junction,
but the other track,
the old track's just the other side of that wall,
I'll try and get a a zoom shot looking down the tunnel.
I was gonna wrap up back up on the surface where I started
but it's so incredible and amazing being down here
seeing it like this, that I'm just gonna end the piece here.
I'm standing on the new southbound Northern Line platform
at Bank Station.
Trains will be running from that way down that way,
sometime in mid-May.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if it opened
on the same day as the Crossrail Elizabeth Line,
we'll find out,
but your new Bank platform Northern Line
is coming very very soon.