Work is continuing apace on the Northern Line Extension…
Lost somewhat against the cacophony of noise about the Crossrail escapades, it’s easy to forget that there’s another Underground project that’s running slightly more on time. The Northern Line Extension will bring the black line to the redeveloped Battersea Power Station area, with two new stations set to open in autumn 2021. It’s the first major extension of a Tube line since the Jubilee line was extended to Stratford back in 1999, so it’s a Pretty Big Deal – and here’s what you need to know! [Featured image: Battersea Power Station, via Twitter]
The extension will run from the Northern line’s current terminus at Kennington, and has necessitated the building of two new stations: Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station. It’s a link which will bring Battersea and the local area onto the Tube network, and mean you’ll be able to get from Battersea to the West End in 15 minutes. TfL are also quick to point out the 25,000 jobs and 20,000 new homes that could be created as a result of the project. Exciting stuff!
How the Northern Line extension came to life
In April 2017, the tunnelling project began, ably assisted by Helen and Amy, a pair of 650-tonne tunnel-boring bombshells. Well, machines. There’s nothing we love more than a couple of strong ladies…
The machines were named by local schoolchildren after Helen Sharman, who became the first British astronaut in 1991, and Amy Johnson, the aviation pioneer best known as the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia. Unsurprisingly, given their past achievements, the tunnelling was completed in a jiffy, with work finished in November 2017. The tunnels themselves are unique; they’re the widest tunnels anywhere on the Tube network, and feature an emergency walkway along the side of them.
As sometimes happens with TfL projects, however, there were delays: in 2018, it was reported that the opening date, originally scheduled for December 2020, would be pushed back to autumn 2021. This was supposedly to coincide with the reopening of the Moorgate-Bank section of the line, which was scheduled to be closed in spring 2020 in order to speed up renovation works at Bank station, and somewhat audaciously move that stretch of the Northern line slightly to the west. However, that closure has now been pushed back to spring/summer 2021, presumably nixing this double dose of openings.
Anyway, things picked up in the summer of 2019, when an engineering train travelled the full length of the tunnels for the first time. In February 2020, the extension took another important step forward with the addition of station roundels – a historic moment, as London’s Deputy Mayor for Transport Heidi Alexander was celebrating on Twitter: