One of central London's busiest Tube stations could close for up to a year as Transport for London battles failing escalators at Angel station on the Northern line. The three escalators, the longest on the London Underground network at about 200 feet each, have been in service for almost 35 years and are becoming increasingly unreliable, TfL says.
One of the escalators failed outright in April, and TfL now believes a second could fail in a similar way within months, while the third is also in need of an upgrade. Because the escalators are so long, TfL says they cannot safely be operated as a fixed staircase, leaving the transport body with no easy workaround if more of them fail, according to QNC News.
Replacing a single escalator is expected to take around a year, forcing TfL into a difficult choice: shut the whole station for a year and replace all three at once, or keep the station partially open while each escalator is replaced in turn, stretching the disruption over a much longer period. The Standard reports that TfL is weighing both options and no final decision has been made.
In the meantime, TfL is considering making Angel exit-only during off-peak periods from next month to allow initial repair work to go ahead. Under that plan, passengers would be unable to board trains at the station on evenings and weekends, pushing commuters onto nearby stations and bus routes, as Metro UK reports.
Angel station is used by almost 12 million passengers a year, and the escalators were installed when the station was rebuilt between 1989 and 1992. TfL's director of asset performance delivery, Richard Jones, said the escalators are becoming less reliable and increasingly difficult to maintain, as their unique design makes replacement far more challenging than usual.