New Tottenham Court Road Station Opens

By Geoff Marshall Last edited 110 months ago
New Tottenham Court Road Station Opens
The new entrance, before dawn
The new entrance, before dawn
Long escalators!
Long escalators!
New ticket hall
New ticket hall
Passageway to exit
Passageway to exit
Very long escalators!
Very long escalators!
Three new escalators from ticket hall to platform
Three new escalators from ticket hall to platform
Northern Line only
Northern Line only
Passageways to platforms
Passageways to platforms
Roundels, exterior
Roundels, exterior
Welcome to your new station!
Welcome to your new station!
New patterns
New patterns
Three new escalators from street to ticket hall
Three new escalators from street to ticket hall

The new station entrance at Tottenham Court Road station opened Monday morning for passengers travelling on the Northern Line, with brand new passageways, a much larger ticket hall (note: which has ticket machines, but no ticket office) with a very wide gateline and new escalators to the new street entrance.

At the moment, only the new Exit No.1 is open, which brings you out to the south west corner. There are two more new entrances/exits to follow later this year on the side of the road right next to Centrepoint, and then the entrance by the Dominion (temporarily closed) will eventually re-open, most likely when the new gateline to the Central Line is complete.

We also found a poster up advising passengers that the nearest alternate Central Line station to use is Bond Street! Clearly, Oxford Circus is nearer — but has a lot of crowding issues.

There will also be lift access from the street to the new ticket hall, and then down to platform level, but this isn't quite finished yet. Interestingly we found that there is Wi-Fi access (previously none at all at this station) but it only works in the new ticket hall and escalator areas — when you get down to platform level, it no longer works.

We quite enjoyed playing the game of watching commuters getting off at the northern end of the platforms — years of instinctively knowing that this was the correct end of the platform to be nearest the exit — only to have to turn 180 degrees and find the new exit back towards the southern end of the platforms. The single exit escalator is currently also boarded up behind a blue door.

The main set of escalators between the ticket hall and the Northern Line are reported to be the second longest on the network (the ones at Angel are still the longest) and take exactly a minute to travel on if you just stand still. There are also several 'blue hoardings' all over the place, where access to Crossrail will follow later.

Note: the Central Line is not stopping at Tottenham Court Road until December 2015 as works on that part of the station now take place. The new ticket office will be expanded again later when the Central Line reopens, and there will be a totally new way into Tottenham Court Road station between Dean Street and Soho Street that will most likely open when Crossrail is finished, but you will eventually be able to use it to get to the tube as well.

Last Updated 12 January 2015