Tube Lines upgrades Woodside Park station ahead of schedule

Tube Lines has completed the upgrade of Woodside Park station four months ahead of schedule.  A team of dedicated engineers worked day and night for six months to bring the 136 year old station into the 21st Century.

The work carried out at Woodside Park station was scheduled to finish in May 2008 but with the hard work of the team, the refurbishment was completed early. Whilst working quickly the team also managed to work safely and were awarded beacon status in August 2007 for implementing a model of safe working at the station.

The modernisation of Woodside Park station has brought many benefits for the thousands of passengers who use the station. A new clearer public address system and a better customer information system have boosted the travel information available, and wall tiles have been replaced to improve the interior design of the station. As with all station modernisations a key focus for Tube Lines has been to boost safety and security, with the number of CCTV cameras increased to 39 throughout the station and the installation of ten new help points. These improvements help to increase the security of passengers and make the station a pleasant place to travel through.

The Tube Lines stations team carried out the bulk of the station upgrade works in the few hours between midnight and the first Tube train in the morning. Working overnight on the Tube always puts pressure on how much work can be achieved in any one shift with time taken up at the beginning to move the equipment into the station, and set up safely and quickly. More time is then taken a few hours later to clean the site and exit before the first train carrying passengers to work comes into service.

The use of a small number of weekend closures enabled the team at Woodside Park to speed up the engineering work to complete the work ahead of the planned completion date. The weekend closures allowed the equivalent of up to 13 normal engineering shifts to be carried out in one weekend. This reduced the disruption to local residents during the night.   

Michael Minta, Project Manager for the station said:

“Woodside Park is over 100 years old and was clearly in need of work to improve the travelling experience for the millions of passengers using the station each year. We turned nocturnal, working all night, every night to make Woodside Park station look brighter and feel safer. There’s now more information available to passengers about when the next trains will arrive and where they’re going, and announcements will be clearer.  Passengers can now also feel safer with additional CCTV cameras and access more information from the new help points.”

49 stations have now been upgraded, with a further ten due to be completed in May this year and upgrade works due to start on another nine stations throughout 2008.

ENDS

For further information, please contact:
Press office, Tube Lines: 020 7088 4848 / 07843 551 589

Notes to Editors

1. Tube Lines is responsible for the maintenance and upgrade of the infrastructure on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. London Underground is responsible for operating the Underground, for employing drivers and station staff, for ticketing and fares, and for the Tube’s safety regime.
2. The Tube Lines consortium consists of two shareholders – Amey and Bechtel. They bring together some of the most experienced providers of business services with specialist skills in the rail industry, including track and signal renewals, plus project and operational management. They are providing some of the best project and operational managers from around the world to work on the modernisation of the Tube system. Amey owns two-thirds of Tube Lines’ business and Bechtel one third.
3. Practical completion means all substantial works have been finished although some outstanding works, such as snags, may still need resolution. These must be completed within a 16-week contractual period.
4. Woodside Park station was opened in 1872 by the Great Northern Railway, with the Northern Line running through the station in 1940
5. Tube Lines introduced its beacon site scheme to help ensure all work at its project sites and maintenance depots is undertaken safely and considerately. It is based around the Considerate Constructors Scheme but demands even higher standards and has additional requirements because of the potentially hazardous rail environment.

 

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