Paddington tube station has another entrance. I know, another one.
It already has a District/Circle/Bakerloo entrance on the mainline concourse, a separate District/Circle entrance across the road on Praed Street, a completely separate Circle/Hammersmith & City entrance over by the canal and, technically, a newish Bakerloo entrance via a long subway from the very separate Crossrail entrance. It used to have a Bakerloo entrance on the mainline concourse but this narrow passageway closed just before lockdown and has since been converted into something considerably flashier. And further away.
The new entrance is part of the Paddington Square development, a spectral white cuboid with several floors of offices sandwiched between a rooftop restaurant and a retail undercroft. The architect Renzo Piano describes it as "a world-class gateway into London, floating above the ground with an animated and organic public realm unfurled beneath", and I'd describe it as a glass cage of concentrated capitalism, shoehorned alongside a station to funnel hungry tourists into a hospitality honeytrap. The masterstroke is incorporating a tube station at its roots.
If you're disembarking from a mainline train, Paddington Square will be to your left alongside the open ramp out of the station. Head upwards from the piazza and you'll find a Wahaca and a Gail's - obviously a Gail's - plus scrutinised escalators ushering smartly clad office fodder to their desks. For the Bakerloo line aim for the concrete slot guarded by a row of bollards and take the escalators down beneath the swirly red and yellow sculpture - the only new artwork hereabouts worth looking at. Oh look, more shops, so far just a Pret and Starbucks but with room for many more. A separate food hall is due to open before Christmas, but for now the numerous security guards watching over everything have very little to do.
The new ticket concourse is off to the side and is deliberately wide, instantly doubling the number of gatelines leading to the Bakerloo. It all looks functional and modern, but after you funnel up the silvery staircase you'll find yourself in a familiar spot - the tiled concourse at the top of the original escalators. What used to be the (fairly narrow) access passageway is now merely the connection to the District and Circle lines, and thus thankfully rather quieter than it used to be. This being the 21st century there's also a lift, a pair of them in fact, connecting directly down to the Bakerloo line platforms. It's like a totally different entry experience, which eventually evaporates when you see the age of the trains rolling into the platform.
Intriguingly I reckon this'll be more popular as an exit than an entrance. It's so far from the mainline platforms that many people may filter in another way. But as you exit up the escalators the Way Out signs are really clear and they deliver everyone through the new ticket hall and out into a realm of beverages and food-to-go. Everyone's now also forced to go outside before reaching the mainline station, whereas at least with the old squished exit you stayed dry if it rained. On the positive side TfL haven't paid a penny towards all this and have got a step-free entrance in return, so that's a big win. But it also means a longer walk via additional changes of level past a shedload of shops, because that's the reality of unfurling an animated public realm to create a world-class gateway.
I wondered if the new ticket hall at Paddington would display copies of the new tube map but it didn't. They'd put up copies of the old one, the map that should have been replaced by now, and all because the renaming of the Overground lines is running unexpectedly late. Even two weeks ago the 'Go live' dates were officially scheduled to be between Monday 23 – Friday 27 September, i.e. right now, but instead everything's been delayed again behind the scenes. Might be further fallout from the recent cyberattack, might just be project creep, but it all means unexpected delays.
It's a shame because the six Overground line closures scheduled for this weekend are across five different lines and that would have looked properly inaugural on the posters. The spread looks almost suspiciously broad, but I checked and they've been in the calendar for months so I doubt it's deliberate.
This, however, is somewhat embarrassing...
It's a sign on the wall outside Upper Holloway station and it suggests that the Overground serves Highbury & Lisington station.
In good news the error is only on the temporary vinyl covering the new sign underneath, which it seems someone didn't proofread very carefully. I can confirm that the green-edged sign underneath definitely has the correct name because the raised letters are visible as faint contours in the vinyl. But if the Overground renaming had gone ahead on schedule this embarrassing mistake would be in the bin by now, whereas alas today anyone can go along and giggle.
Thankfully signage does sometimes get correctly updated. I'm delighted to say that there is now a poster at Bus Stop M to say that route 8 no longer starts here. Here's the van which turned up on Monday morning to deliver it.
The wording on the poster is generally correct, so should be helpful in deterring passengers from waiting for a bus that isn't coming. But it still mentions Bow Church DLR station twice, which route 8 has never served and which the suggested alternative buses don't serve either. This suggests the minion who wrote it didn't really understand the local situation, but hey, better two weeks late than never.
