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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Blackfriars Tube finally Re-Opens after 3 year closure

As from 20th February 2012 finally you won't see Blackfriars station with a crossed out line running through it on the London Underground map or additions like the one below.

Train map on the platforms
Train map on the platforms by IanVisits

As I think I've mentioned on the blog in the past and to people I meet in person, I rarely get excited about new station openings, unless they are ones I use on a regular basis. Blackfriars will be useful for me on the occasions the London Bloggers Meetup group is held in a pub near the bridge!

As that's not particularly regularly, I've left it for people who are much better than me at covering station openings & re-openings to explain & show what went on yesterday. IanVisits has a great post with lots of pictures of the shiny new station.  He notes how the opening caught many by surprise: "Several months late, or a week early, depending on how you look at it, Blackfriars Tube station unexpectedly opened to the public this morning".

New ticket hall and entrance
New ticket hall and entrance by IanVisits

I like the happy faces of the staff in the control room

New control room
New control room at Blackfriars Tube by IanVisits
 

The crew over at Londonist also covered the re-opening and were there for the pre rush-hour rush:


Photo from Londonist

"Fresh from a closure that lasted three years, Blackfriars has been completely rebuilt. The station now sports cream tiling throughout, replacing the Seventies-looking brown and orange pattern of its previous incarnation."

Paul Robertson also has a set of photos and a video is here. Ironically Paul notes that although shiny, as with most things on the London Underground,  there were still problems:

Escalator Notice by Paul Robertson
Escalator Notice by Paul Robertson

"On the very first day the station was open after a three-year modernisation programme, guess what? A broken-down escalator. Business as usual, basically."

Indeed!

Related post
Blackfriars Tube Station closed until 2011


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