Canada Water station

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Canada Water Handicapped/disabled access
Canada Water station building.JPG
Circular main station entrance
Location Canada Water
Local authority Southwark
Managed by London Underground
Owner Transport for London
Platforms in use 4 (2 currently in use)
Fare zone 2
LUL 2005 usage 7.65 million[1]
LUL 2007 usage 8.949 million[1]
LUL 2008 usage 11.43 million[1]

1999 Opened

List of stations Underground · National Rail

Canada Water tube station is a London Underground station at Canada Water in Rotherhithe. It intersects the Jubilee Line, between Bermondsey and Canary Wharf, and the East London Line, between Rotherhithe and Surrey Quays. It is in Travelcard Zone 2. The London Overground will also serve the station from 2010, as the replacement extension of the historic East London Line.

Contents

[edit] History

Canada Water was originally intended to be a stop on the aborted Fleet Line Extension to Thamesmead. The extension was never built, but Canada Water became the only projected Fleet Line Extension station to be realised on the Jubilee Line Extension.[2]

The station is a wholly new building on a derelict site formerly occupied by Albion Dock, part of the old Surrey Commercial Docks.[2] The station was one of the first designed for the Jubilee Line Extension. The contract for the station's construction was initially awarded to Wimpey in 1993 for the sum of £21.3 million and was later taken over by Tarmac (now Carillion).[3] Construction began in 1995. It proved extremely challenging, requiring the excavation (by cut-and-cover) of a void 150 m (490 ft) long, 23 m (75 ft) wide and 22 m (72 ft) deep. The building of the East London Line station required a separate slot at right angles, 130 m (430 ft) long, 13 m (43 ft) deep and tapering in width, incorporating a Victorian railway tunnel. Construction was complicated by the high water table on the site, which is located on the Thames flood plain; extensive deep-well dewatering was required to lower the water table before the enclosure to the excavations could be built. A total of 120,000 m³ (4,237,760 ft³) of spoil had to be excavated. An additional complication was the location of the excavation site, near the foundations of two existing 22-storey tower blocks and the northern end of the still-flooded former dock of Canada Water. The section of East London line running through the station was completely reconstructed, with the 19th-century brick railway tunnel being dismantled and the track relaid over a new structure bridging the Jubilee line tracks below. As the East London line had to be closed for this work, London Underground took the opportunity to carry out other remedial works such as repairs to the Thames Tunnel, a short distance to the north.[4]

It was opened on 17 September 1999, served initially by East London line trains. The Jubilee line passenger service from the station began on 20 November 1999.[5]

[edit] Architecture

The station, which was the first to be designed in the Jubilee Line Extension project, has been described by the Hong Kong MTR's chief architect Roland Paoletti as "the only station on the JLE that has been built to the strict engineering economies of the specification of a Hong Kong interchange station." Above ground, its most salient feature is a striking glass "drum" 25 m (82 ft) across, which covers a deep opening descending almost to the Jubilee Line platforms, 22 m (72 ft) below the surface. This feature was designed to allow natural light to reach deep into the station, a design principle common to many of the stations on the Jubilee Line Extension. The drum was designed and constructed by Buro Happold.[4] It is notably similar to the brick drum designed by Charles Holden for Arnos Grove tube station on the Piccadilly line in the 1930s, but is much more oriented towards the entry of daylight.[6]

The drum is accompanied by a glass-roofed bus station designed by Eva Jiřičná which serves as a hub for services in the Rotherhithe and Bermondsey areas. The bus station was designed to fit in a relatively small site between the station drum, the railway's ventilation openings, a high wall and the adjoining tower blocks. Its most distinctive feature is a row of 16 m (52 ft)-long roof spans cantilevered from a row of central columns supporting a 100 m (330 ft)-long glass and aluminium canopy. This provides acoustic protection to the residential blocks and shelters passengers waiting below.[3]

Below ground, the station is dominated by a huge concrete box, large enough to accommodate one of the Canary Wharf skyscrapers on its side. It is lined by a series of huge concrete pillars designed to take the weight of a planned nine-storey building on the surface as well as the roadway and bus station.[4] The station has four lifts and eight escalators with an average rise of about 6.5 m (21 ft) to connect the lower parts of the station with street level. It is built on three levels: the ticket office and shops lie immediately below ground, the two north-south East London line platforms are situated on the second level 11 m (36 ft) below the ground, and the two east-west Jubilee line platforms are on the lowest level 22 m (72 ft) down.

The station was the winner of the Civic Trust Building of the Year Award for 2000, and the Interchange Awards' Medium Size Project of the Year award for 2001.[7]

[edit] The station today

Since December 2007 only the two Jubilee line platforms are in use. The two East London line platforms closed on 22 December 2007 for the East London line's extension works and will not reopen until May 2010, when the East London Line route will form part of the London Overground.

[edit] Layout

[edit] Jubilee Station

Jubilee towards Stratford
Eastbound Platform 2
Island Platform (Platform Edge Doors)
Westbound Platform 1
Jubilee towards Stanmore

[edit] Overground Station

Side Platform Reopens May 23, 2010
Southbound Overground towards New Cross, Crystal Palace or West Croydon
Northbound Overground towards Dalston Junction
Side Platform Reopens June 2010

[edit] Gallery

  • [1] Multimap Bird's Eye of Station]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Transport for London - London Underground performance update
  2. ^ a b Kenneth Powell. The Jubilee Line Extension: A Celebration, p. 84. Laurence King, 2000. ISBN 1856691845
  3. ^ a b Bob Mitchell. Jubilee Line Extension: From Concept to Completion, pp. 169-172. Thomas Telford, 2003
  4. ^ a b c David Bennett, Dennis Gilbert, Roland Paoletti. Architecture of the Jubilee Line Extension, p. 64-71. Thomas Telford, 2004. ISBN 0727730886
  5. ^ Bob Mitchell. Jubilee Line Extension: From Concept to Completion, p. 326. Thomas Telford, 2003
  6. ^ Derek Phillips, Carl Gardner. Daylighting: Natural Light in Architecture. Elsevier, 2004. ISBN 0750663235
  7. ^ Mitchell, p. 356.

[edit] External links

Preceding station   Underground no-text.svg London Underground   Following station
towards Stanmore
Jubilee line
towards Stratford
towards Shoreditch
East London line
(bus replacement service until 2010)
Overground notextroundel.svg National Rail London Overground
Rotherhithe   London Overground
East London Line
under construction
  Surrey Quays

Coordinates: 51°29′54″N 0°03′00″W / 51.49833°N 0.05°W / 51.49833; -0.05