Finsbury Park station upgrade plans

I've been over the plans to install ticket barriers and lifts at Finsbury Park station before, but I saw on TfL's project page they've taken the unusual step of pointing passengers to the planning application, which comes with a long list of documents and plans.

The design statement will tell you everything there is to know about the proposal, including photos of disused parts of the station. It suggests Network Rail may install lifts up to their platforms at the same time, and gives serious consideration to Islington Council's Western Ticket Hall proposal. One odd detail mentioned is the spiral staircases need to have their direction reversed.

The northbound and southbound cross-sections show just how shallow the tube lines are at the station, and where they're located in relation to the rail platforms above.

The future site plan shows a set of doors enclosing the Station Place entrances. This certainly doesn't exist now and isn't part of the works in this planning application, so I'm not sure what that's about.

Finally, TfL's site says the application is still pending, but it was actually approved on April 4th.

East Coast Main Line RUS published

Network Rail have published their East Coast Main Line Route Utilisation Strategy. The recommended work affecting London includes:

• Six-car trains will be used on all shoulder-peak First Capital Connect inner-suburban services as soon as trains are available from London Overground (four are needed).
• Off-peak inner-suburban services will be increased from 3tph to 4tph on each branch, including weekday evenings and Saturdays.
• Extension of hours on the Moorgate branch is unlikely.
• The Up Goods line (the easternmost track) from Alexandra Palace to Finsbury Park will be converted into a third southbound passenger usage. The four stations it passes will get extra platforms on the line, and may also get them on the equivalent northbound line, the Down Slow 2 (the westernmost track). This will improve flexibility and capacity.
• Extra trains will run from the Hertford Loop to Moorgate in the morning peak.
• Outer suburban platforms will be extended to 12-car length progressively, in advance of when they're needed by the Thameslink Porgramme.
• Finsbury Park and Harringay are candidates for the National Station Improvement Programme, which seeks to improve station ambience.
• Finsbury Park and Highbury & Islington will be getting lifts to the National Rail platforms (and the tube platforms).
• A speculative section at the end mentions the [somewhat unlikely] possibility of inner-suburban trains going to Thameslink, with outer suburban trains being Intercity Express Programme trains to King's Cross
• Also speculatively, insufficient capacity at Moorgate could in the long term lead to some inner-suburban trains using the Canonbury tunnel to the North London Line.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because most of it appeared in the draft document, published last June.

As an aside, both this document and the West Hampstead Interchange info mention that, come 2015, the split of Thameslink services between the Midland Main Line and the East Coast Main Line will be 16 vs 8 each hour, rather than the 14 vs 10 that appeared in previous documents. There'll still be two trains per hour into King's Cross (possibly peak-only), rising to six per hour in the longer term.

Station Upgrades: Finsbury Park and Highbury & Islington

TfL are planning to install ticket barriers at Finsbury Park, the last ungated tube station of any significance*. They'll also be installing lifts down to the tube platforms.

The tube station is buried underneath the railway viaduct, so the only access is via narrow passageways that open directly onto the street, with no ticket halls to speak of. A year or two ago they added a new canopy on the east side which will allow the entrances there to be gated without making people queue in the rain. The small Wells Terrace ticket hall will be extended slightly to fit in two tiny gatelines, and the tunnel from Seven Sisters Road will have its gateline positioned deep inside the station, where there's a wider part.

The top end of the lifts will be in a reopened passageway off the National Rail entrance (behind the braille station map in the first photo and the blue area on the diagram). The passageway will be extended so that it doubles as a shortcut from the Wells Terrace entrance to the tube platforms, though you'll need to either use the lifts or go up to the National Rail subway (on the right in the photo) before going down the spiral interchange staircases. It's not clear whether the National Rail entrance will be signposted as a tube entrance via a similar route, but it'd certainly reduce pressure on the tube gateline next door.

TfL say they're going to "reinstating the disused double spiral staircases", which is strange as they're already open. It turns out the key word here is "double". Each shaft has (or had, in the northbound's case) a second staircase interleaved with the open one (the bottom two photos). This was news to me and I use those staircases every week.

While the new gates also cover the National Rail platforms, the step-free access won't. It's stated the plans are compatible with (while completely ignoring) the Finsbury Park "Western Ticket Hall" proposal that appears in Islington Council's Area Action Plan, which was published two years ago.

Meanwhile, a consultation over similar modifications at Highbury and Islington ends soon. They plan to demolish the shops the entrance building is hidden behind, create a bus interchange and install lifts. No news on where the lifts will go, but with the platforms so far from the current station building, it's going to be a challenge.

* We'll ignore the leaky topology at Paddington