View of new ticket office looking North by kind permission of London Underground and Taylor Woodrow BAM Nuttall

In 2010 the Tottenham Court Road Station Upgrade Project commenced involving the rebuilding and modernisation of the station. The station currently serves the Northern and Central lines but Crossrail services are due to commence in 2018 and it is estimated that once this begins there will be an additional 50,000 passengers per day.

On Saturday 10^th November 2012 we were fortunate to obtain places on the Tottenham Court Road Station Upgrade Project tour which was part of the Open Doors*** weekend.

The visit commenced with a short presentation by various members of the team about the project. We then were fitted out with our Personal Protective Equipment (safety clothing) before going on the construction site.

We were shown around the site in small groups. Our group of four were show round by Sam and Kevin who explained what construction work was taking place at the various parts of the site.

We were unable to take our own photos on site and therefore all the photos on this blog are with the kind permission of London Underground and Taylor Woodrow BAM Nuttall.

View of new ticket office looking East towards Centrepoint

Outside Centrepoint there will be a public plaza with new glass entrances leading into the ticket hall. These glass structures will provide both a landmark at street level as well as helping to light the ticket hall underneath.  The new ticket hall will be over six times larger than the current one.

View of the escalator decline which will link the ticket hall to the platforms. The red and white tubes temporarily protect the power cables while construction work is in progress.

Looking down into the escalator decline

Additional escalators will reduce congestion and provide easier access to the commuters' chosen platforms.

We were informed before hand that our tour would be limited to the surface so we were delighted to be able to climb down a temporary metal staircase to take a closer look at the second level. 

View looking North towards Oxford Street

  Falconburg Basement looking towards St Patrick's RC Church in Soho Square

The Falconberg Shaft will contain new emergency escape stairs and is being built from the bottom upwards. Once completed there will also be a new open space linking Charing Cross Road with Soho Square and providing vistas of St Patrick’s RC Church. 

After the tour we returned to the lounge area where we could help ourselves to leaflets and “Tottenham Court Road Project” mugs which we were able to take away as a souvenir of the day.

A big thank you to Open Doors Weekend, London Underground and Taylor Woodrow BAM Nuttall for enabling this amazing tour to be held.

Practical Information

***Open Doors Weekend enabled members of the public to visit working constructions sites across England, Scotland and Wales. The events arranged were free of charge. However many of the tours required pre-booking and very quickly became fully booked. The first Open Doors Weekend was held on 9 – 10 November 2012 and the next one will take place in 2013. For more details see the Open Doors Weekend website. 

Tottenham Court Road Station was only one of several construction sites open to the public. For more information about this project see the Crossrail website.

If you enjoyed this you might like reading my blog about other construction projects.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of London and City of Westminster Tour Guide who leads guided walks combining world famous landmarks with hidden treasures often missed by the crowds.

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