For decades the two mile gap between Hendon and Cricklewood stations didn't need a station. The surrounding area was mostly retail parks and rundown industrial estates, and the site itself was occupied by Cricklewood traction maintenance depot. But 'rundown industrial estate' is code these days for massive regeneration project, hence the upcoming eruption of 6000 flats and the sudden need for Thameslink trains to stop in the middle of nowhere. They started stopping yesterday.
Some new stations are quite dull but Brent Cross West also has to double up as a footbridge and a regeneration beacon so avoids being an identikit package of platforms. It's been knocked up in four years flat, from "could you design us a station?" to "please unveil this plaque", and Barnet council are inordinately proud of it. Stay with me and I'll tell you all about it, or if you prefer looking at photos I've uploaded 25 to Flickr. You are allowed to do both.
Let's start on the 'slow' platforms which is where you're most likely to arrive. Six Thameslink trains an hour are due to stop on their way to and from St Albans and Luton, and for a quick exit you want to be in the middle of the train rather than at either end. These are longer platforms than at the stations to either side because a potential town centre needs to be futureproofed. At thetips you'll find gritbins, clusters of metal benches and warnings that 25000v is passing through cables above your head. Come a bit closer in and there are mysterious locked doors labelled 'roof access', then long thin glass-fronted waiting rooms, and eventually the escalators up to the main concourse.
In a nice touch the 'priority seats' are raised a few inches higher than their standard counterparts. In a nice touch clean toilets, unlocked and free to use, are tucked under the stairs. In a nice touch several signs along the platform have raised text so they can be read by talented fingers. In a nice touch additional Braille signs have been added on the stair-rail, because that's where talented fingers are most likely to be. In a nice touch each waiting room has two wheelchair spaces, and how long has it taken certain architects to realise that filling them with seats was an issue? There are a lot of nice touches.
The 'fast' platforms form a separate island across the tracks. They're very similar platforms, even down to having waiting rooms hardly anyone will use, but are without toilets and escalator access because that would be wasteful. Normally they'll be gated off, but engineering works on Day One conspired to send the first trains this way (to the delight of multiple spoddy first train aficionados). I didn't catch the very first train but I could tell many of my fellow passengers were railnerds, not just from the moquette socks but also from the collective sigh they issued south of Cricklewood as the train unexpectedly passed from the fast tracks to the slow.
The centralconcourse is huge and naturally lit, with a dash of orange girdering to draw the eye towards the exit. It's so broad there are ten ticket gates, which looks ludicrous now but may be justified one day during some far distant rush hour. Even then it's possible this space will never again be as busy as at the moment yesterday when the Mayor turned up to unveil a plaque, watched over by a crowd of radiant developers, gleeful councillors and phone-waving citizens. No ticket office has been provided, just a brief bank of three ticket machines. The Christmas tree is purely seasonal.
From this point on the station is mostly a footbridge, but arguably that's the most important part. It provides the first public access across what was previously an unbroken mile of railway, and the walkways at Staples Corner are so pedestrian-unfriendly I actually shuddered the last time I used them. Now you can nip across the Midland Mainline with ease, just not (yet) in a location where many people want to be. Turn left for 'Edgware Road' (that's the A5, not the tube station) or right for 'Brent Cross Town' (that's the building site, not the shopping mall). Alternatively, as the illuminable bottletop art has it, left is Towards Brent and right is Towards Barnet.
You won't find a bookmark-making workshop when you visit, because that was a creative sop to young First Day visitors, but the boxy passage eventually drops away towards two ground level exits. They're very different experiences.
The left-hand descent is into a brick and glass cavern, and you'll be walking down because yet again escalators have only been provided for those heading up. The design's more than adequate but architecturally unexciting, as befits the side of the tracks the developers have no interest in. They tried making it interesting yesterday with wood-fired pizza, but normally you'll find yourself deposited on a service road between Argos and Decathlon facing a walk through a car park. The station's a magnificent step-up for hereabouts, but hereabouts isn't really somewhere that needs one.
The right-hand descent, however, is like arriving at the top of a vast timber-framed conservatory. Only a few plants have been draped about the interior but just enough to create a desirable illusion as you gaze down onto the promised land. Here too is the station's major artwork, a tumbling 50 metre frieze of geometrical colour. It's called Time passes & still I think of you and is a tribute by Giles Broad to his mother who once worked at the shopping centre. It works really well, and you'll find additional complementary panels to admire on the landings by the lift.
The landings are odd because there's a seemingly pointless mezzanine halfway down with full lift access. Top to bottom, from the footbridge down to the bike store, is all anyone currently needs to do. But this is in fact further futureproofing, because one day a university campus will be built along this railside strip and it can now have immediate first floor access from the station. Step outside into the nothingness and try to imagine the scale of what's to come. The timber framework may look vast but it's nothing compared to the buildings that'll one day be built to either side, and indeed across the road, and indeed all around.
I'll come back tomorrow and tell you what's beyond the station because that's another entire blogpostsworth. For now let's just go back inside... in this case by following that raised stripe of dotty tactile paving. It continues into the station, branches towards the stairs and the lifts, threads all the way along the footbridge, bends into the concourse towards one of the wide gates and finally bifurcates towards the platforms. Brent Cross West station demonstrates the heights of what's possible for disabled access, having been baked into the design from the start, apart from the fact the platforms aren't level boarding to the trains. All that dosh and it's still only a white blob.
