Making Golders Green step free

Tube Lines has completed the step free access project at Golders Green Tube station on the busiest line on the network – the Northern line. Two lifts have been installed on the island platforms to make the station more accessible to over seven million passengers who use it each year to travel around the capital. The project was a huge undertaking taking close to two-and-a-half years to complete, says Cuneyt Atacan

One step ahead
As part of the Underground Public Private Partnership contract, Tube Lines is required to make six of the stations on our three lines step free. With the Olympics and Paralympic Games coming to London in 2012, there is a greater demand for many of London’s Tube stations to be made more accessible to those with disabilities. The benefits of making a station step free are threefold as those with heavy luggage, push chairs and the elderly or disabled will all be able to travel around the stations with ease.

Tube Lines has stepped up to this challenge and we have delivered all our improvement projects so far on time and within budget.

The London Underground is the world’s oldest operational underground railway and with some of the stations dating back to the late 1800s, the amount of work needed to upgrade them can be phenomenal. Unlike other railway systems in the world such as New York, it is not possible to shut down large sections of the track or stations in order to complete the upgrade work.

With everything that we do, Tube Lines strives to be the best in the industry. This is reflected in our work and our fast but accurate working practice is testament to that. With more than ten stations currently undergoing upgrade work (66 have already been completed) and many more in the design stages, there needs to be quite an impressive amount of juggling going on to ensure that we stay one step ahead of the game.

Careful project management
Golders Green station on the Northern line is the third station to be made step free. From design to construction the whole step free access process can take anywhere between two-and-a-half to four years. In the case of Golders Green our design team spent more than two years drawing and amending the designs for the lift shaft.

The new construction management approach that we are currently using means that as project managers we have a lot more control in each stage of the construction process than we did when we hired principal contractors. We now adopt that role ourselves. An example of how this helps can be seen when London Underground changes the scope of the work. In previous years, any amendments to the original design would have involved a lot of negotiation with various contractors and other external parties. Now we are able to do this work in-house and retain more direct control.

Unlike the majority of London Underground stations, Golders Green has a single disused platform beside the two island platforms. This platform is not available for public use and was historically only accessible to London Underground staff. During the upgrade process we were allowed to bring this extra platform into service. By keeping this platform open throughout the duration of the works we were able to keep a full service running while the lower reinforced concrete shafts for the lift and access tunnel were being constructed. Staggered platform closures meant that both the north and southbound services could run smoothly while the installation work was taking place. At Golders Green, careful planning enabled us to do the whole of the work without having to close the station at all.

Design challenges
In 2006, Golders Green station had already undergone a large scale refurbishment to improve and enhance the travelling experience for its many passengers. In this full scale upgrade, which focused on passenger safety and comfort, the number of CCTV cameras increased from 25 to 122 and extra passenger help points were installed, enabling customers to speak to station staff as well as having a direct link to the British Transport Police, taking the total to ten.

During the design stages, one of the features that the project team had to take care of was the visual aspect of the lifts. The station was first built in 1907 and still has many of the original design features.

During the station upgrade work, these features were preserved or restored. For this reason it was necessary to make sure that the new lifts and fixtures looked as though they were original features. The project and design teams had to look carefully at the materials they used in order to make sure that the new lift and surrounding areas merged together seamlessly with the existing features. The current canopies that support the roof date back to the 1920s and these had to be altered to accommodate both lift shafts. These, as well as the current station roof, had to be cut into in order to allow the lift shafts to be positioned in place.

The step free access work at Golders Green station was more challenging than most due to the fact that it is served by two island platforms, one of which is relatively small. The width of the average platform on the Underground is eight metres wide. Golders Green station measures only six metres in width creating a significant challenge. Golders Green station also needed extensive excavation to allow an underground walkway to be built between the ticket office and the platform before the lift could be installed

Working towards a more accessible station
One of the more pressing aspects of the work at this station was isolating the track current while the work was taking place. Due to there being a live current for the duration of the works, we had to use 52 contiguous piles, each 12 metres deep driven into the earth, to support the track. These act as a retaining structure separating the live current from the lift shaft and allow the excavation works, six metres deep, to continue during traffic hours.

In a first for Tube Lines, the actual steel lift shafts were completely pre-assembled in Northern Ireland by McGrath. Following their assembly, both of the complete lift shafts were shipped over, ready to “drop” into the pre-constructed holes. This method saved the project team almost six weeks and meant that we could shave some valuable time off the upgrade programme.

Large projects such as this usually cannot be done in a short time frame. The project started in early 2007 and was delivered into service in February 2009. For this particular project it was necessary to have a platform closure between September 2007 to December 2007. At this stage in the construction phase, the access tunnel and the lift shaft had been built and were ready to be installed. Over the course of a weekend in June 2008, two mobile cranes were required to lift and place the external shafts into the hole.

In summary
With work that has the potential to affect millions of passengers a year, we have to constantly improve our working practice. Tight deadlines and high profile projects mean that there is little or no room for error. This pressure has kept us on our toes and makes us find ever more efficient ways of working.

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