Holloway Road tube station on the Piccadilly line will have just one lift in use between the street and trains until July 2024 due to maintenance work that will see both of the 1980s era lifts being replaced, one at a time.
Due to the maintenance work, there will only be one lift in use at any time, and although the rest of the station will operate as normal, TfL is warning that customers may need to queue for the lifts during weekday morning peak hours.
Esther Sharples, TfL’s Director of Asset Performance Delivery, said: “We’d like to thank our customers for their patience while we operate a reduced lift service at Holloway Road Tube station to enable us to carry out essential work to replace both ageing lifts, one at a time, with new state-of-the-art machines. The station will remain open while these works are carried out, although there may be some queuing to enter the one operational lift during busy periods. It will take up to seven months to replace each lift, both of which were installed in the 1980s and are at the end of their working life. Once installed, the two new lifts will improve journeys through Holloway Road station for many years to come.”
There will also be temporary closures during events at the nearby Emirates Stadium, customers are advised to allow extra time and consider using nearby Caledonian Road or Arsenal stations instead.
Although the station already tends to be exit only on match days, during the replacement of each of the lifts, they will change the procedure. During Emirates Stadium events, Holloway Road station will be closed for two hours before the start of the event and will open 15 minutes after the start of the event. For return traffic, the station will be closed 15 minutes before the end of the event and will be kept closed for 90 minutes after the event.
The station was built with two lift shafts, and each shaft holds two lifts – but only one shaft was ever used for lifts.
The second unused lift shaft was the site of the famous failed experimental spiral escalator. In the 1990s, remains of the escalator equipment were excavated from the base of the lift shaft and stored at the London Transport Museum’s Acton depot. From the platforms, a second exit no longer in use is visible and leads to the back of the used lift shaft.
There was a plan to add two more lifts into the unused shaft to support increased visitors to the Arsenal football ground, but it was later found that the numbers of people using the station would require the lifts to be replaced with escalators, which was far too expensive.
Updated 22nd Aug 2023 – The original completion date of June 2024 has changed to July 2024.
Leave a Reply