Northern line station closures - Colindale and Kentish Town

If you are/not local to the Northern line on the London Underground, you may be aware that (you might have had no idea that this occurred and that's absolutely fine) there were two station closures recently up in North West London. Colindale and Kentish Town stations. Trains would not call at these two stations due to improvement works and all that. If not, then like I say, no problem. Let me explain.

Thameslink (part of National Rail - hence the red symbol) also serves Kentish Town station, this part of the station was unaffected during the closure.

We begin with Kentish Town. Kentish Town (Underground, as National Rail also serves here, too) station was closed from Monday 26th of June 2023, this was to do with escalator works taking place. The London Underground escalators are heavy duty machines running for long hours on a daily basis. They weigh around 40 tonnes and transport millions of people each year. A normal escalator with a 15-meter rise has 15,000 moving parts (yes that's a lot, I know!). Basically, what this improvement programme was about is that two escalators had to be replaced as they have been running since 1997, as a result, age has caught up to them and it caused last minute station closures bringing delays to the network. The previous escalators were the most unreliable on the London Underground network. 

Recently, the station re-opened on Monday 23th of December 2024. It was originally supposed to open in June 2024 but it got pushed back to Winter. The two new escalators at Kentish Town have more efficient motors and drivers meaning electricity will be reduced. When the escalators are not in use, they will operate at a slower speed to save energy. Other improvements that also occurred at the station included: removing the ticket office (that is now not operational), realigning the ticket barriers to allow more space for commuters to enter, adding ticket gates and the station receiving a deep clean, being painted up with new floors and wall tiles including new signage installed too. 

Colindale was another station that was closed between June 2024 and December 2024.

Moving onto Colindale station. The station is being rebuilt to have step free access and spacious ticket hall. Why you ask? Colindale is growing in terms of people, as it's one of fastest growing neighbourhoods in London by 70% since 2011, due to the development of houses in the area near to the station. What will the improvements include? Let me list them for you:

• A new building to replace the current entrance
• Ticket hall will be spacious, this will increase station capacity
• Lift to be provided at the station offering step free access from street to platform level
• An accessible toilet 
• Improvements to infrastructure and more parking for bicycles
• New in station retail space
• Sustainable blue and green roof drainage system with wild plants

So those are the improvements that are being done. The station re-opened on Friday 20th of December 2024. It was closed on Friday 7th of June 2024 for 6 months - this is part of the first phase of these works. The new staircase has been put in place but the new entrance is not in operation yet. Access to the platforms will be via a temporary passage leading you to the staircases. There will be a one way system in place and the station could be busy during peak times so, bare that in mind.

Signage up at Tottenham Court Road station, seen talking about the two station closures.

Stickers were placed in the train carriages, showing that the trains would not call at Colindale and Kentish Town stations.

I am yet to visit these two stations, but if I ever do then there will definitely be blog posts about them. While Kentish Town works have been complete, Colindale still has some more work left for to be fully complete. TFL (Transport For London) says it should be by Autumn 2025, but we will see. Colindale station can be found on Edgware branch and Kentish Town on the Mill Hill East/High Barnet branches of the Northern Line. See below.

Colindale and Kentish Town stations both on different branches.

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone - admittedly I wasn't sure about writing this at first, although if you felt like it helped pass the time then your welcome and no worries. 

There has been a noticeable lack of blog posts since the last one, (which was in August 2024) however, I have found some time to go out and about - expect some blog posts to be released over the coming months. 

Thank you for reading and happy riding! 

Oh and Happy New Year too!