A video of the nearly completed new railway station at Brent Cross West in North London has been released by the local council, showing how the station will look when it opens in a few months time.
(c) Barnet Council
The new Brent Cross West station sits between Cricklewood and Hendon stations and will be served by Thameslink trains, with up to eight trains an hour at peak times. The station will also be able to accommodate the planned West London Orbital (WLO) line if it is built, providing additional cross-London services.
It’s being built as part of a large housing development for some 6,700 new homes, which otherwise would have given residents a lengthy walk to either the Northern line tube station or the next closest rail station. New bus stops at the station’s eastern entrance, just a few minutes from Claremont Park will offer new ways to board the 189 and 326. Over at the western entrance, the 316 bus will terminate and leave from the station.
The new station building also includes a public overbridge connecting the two sides of the railway that was severed by the Midland Main Line 150 years ago.
Barnet Council is leading Brent Cross West station and the associated rail infrastructure – it is one of the first rail projects in England to be delivered entirely by a local authority. It is being built by VolkerFitzpatrick, and project managed by Mace, with Network Rail a key programme partner.
Although a formal opening date hasn’t been announced, barring a very unexpected problem, it’s pretty much guaranteed to open on Sunday 10th December 2023, as that’s when the National Rail timetables change.
Even if it doesn’t open on 10th December, the timetable will be designed so that stops at Brent Cross West can be added during the currency of the timetable.
Lovely update but just wondering, wasn’t this station meant to be opened at the end of 2022 instead? 🤔
When it got approval/funding, the target date was May 2022. That said it was originally planned for the station to be delivered around 2031 when the overall regeneration project was first made public.
Very sad that they went for an overbridge for the public pedestrian and cycle crossing of the line rather than the genuinely accessible option of a ramped underpass (as they would surely have built in the Netherlands or Germany). I criticised this decision right from the first plans.
Ramped routes are longer and slower for most people to use, and generally not considered acceptable for offering step-free access unless absolutely unavoidable.
And most people dislike underpasses.
Did you notice the bus stop in that video. Got wrong place name on it, and ‘towards’ the wrong direction below. The stop opposite has the correct name, although the shelter is redicculously far from the stop, and shows only 316 as a route number, which will only serve the other side of the tracks!