Farringdon station

A Class 319 heads south from Farringdon. On the left is the blocked-off City Widened Line branch to Moorgate, closed as part of the Thameslink Programme.

Farringdon Station has been rebuilt[14] to accommodate longer Thameslink trains and to make other improvements to the station.[15] The existing station building has been refurbished with a new roof canopy covering the north end of all four platforms and a new entrance and concourse facing Turnmill Street. An additional ticket hall has been built on the south side of Cowcross Street providing access to the Thameslink platforms, which have been extended southwards underneath this building, allowing the station to handle 240 m (12-carriage) trains. Platforms have been widened to accommodate increased passenger numbers. This process required the bridge that formed Cowcross Street to be demolished and rebuilt.[16] Cowcross Street is now pedestrianised.[17] Lifts have been provided throughout.

The existing listed ticket hall and concourse have been remodelled, for use by London Underground and Thameslink passengers.[18] Interchange within the station has been improved by removing the interchange bridge and installing new stairs and lifts with access to all four platforms, allowing passengers with impaired mobility to use the station.[19]

It was necessary to build the Thameslink platform extensions to the south, since there is a sharp gradient to the immediate north of the station. This resulted in the two-station branch to Moorgate being permanently closed.[20] The platform extensions cross the former Moorgate line and reach within a few metres of the entrance of the Snow Hill Tunnel.[21] The alternative of realigning both the Thameslink and Circle/Hammersmith & City/Metropolitan lines was impractical as the latter crosses over the former on a bridge almost immediately to the north of the station.[21]

A Crossrail platform at Farringdon, shown at a preview open day.

The Farringdon Crossrail station is being built between Farringdon and Barbican Underground stations and it will have interchanges with both of them.[22] Access at the Farringdon end will be via the new Thameslink ticket hall. Work was anticipated to be completed in 2018, but the scheduled opening date was postponed and is now planned for early to mid-2022.[23][24] Crossrail will link Farringdon to Canary Wharf, Abbey Wood, Stratford, and Shenfield in the east with Paddington, Heathrow and Reading in the west. The station will also be a hub for cross-London travel, being the only station to be on both the north-south Thameslink service and the east-west Crossrail service.[25]

The Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines – otherwise known as the sub-surface lines – make up over 40% of the London Underground network moving over 1.3 million passengers everyday stretching from busy commuter hubs to rural backwaters. They also cover some of the oldest infrastructure on the Underground network. For example, Edgware Road signal cabin opened in 1926 and required over 3,600 manually operated lever movements a day up until its closure as part of the upgrade in September 2019.[26][27] [28]This ageing system still in use across most of these four lines uses fixed block signalling where the track is divided into segments to keep trains a safe distance from each other. At the moment trains run further apart than they need to and data is not centrally monitored which means that this system requires regular maintenance and faults are more expensive, as well as taking longer to locate and fix any faulty equipment which in-turn reduces service reliability.

Since the sub-surface lines are closely interlinked Transport for London announced in March 2015 that the sub-surface lines would be subject to a wholesale re-signalling programme to be known collectively as the Four Lines Modernisation, or 4LM for short. The upgrade will replace all the signalling equipment on all four lines, which will then be monitored from a new control centre currently under construction in Hammersmith. This will replace the numerous signal cabins and service control centres previously across the four lines.[26]

The new signalling system uses the Thales SelTrac moving block system otherwise known as communications-based train control (CBTC) which uses WiFi to constantly let controllers know where trains are and how fast they are going. Precise speeds will be set by computers so trains will be able to run at higher speeds and closer together with a maximum service frequency of 32 trains per hour (every 2 minutes) in central London by the time the upgrade is complete in 2023. As well as reducing journey times a 33% increase in capacity will be created on all four lines making the best use out of 192 S-Stock trains which too have a universal design exclusively for the sub-surface lines.[26]

Timeline

• From 2021: more frequent trains in Zone 1 (30 trains per hour) at the busiest times[12]
• From 2022: more frequent services in central London (up to 32 tph at peak times) and increases on the rest of the Metropolitan, District, and Hammersmith and City lines both at peak and off-peak periods[12]
• From 2023: a further increase in services on the Metropolitan line at peak times, and increases in off peak services across all four lines[12]

Underground trains at Farringdon Station

The London Underground part of the station is served by the Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City and Circle lines, between King's Cross St Pancras and Barbican. All three lines share the same pair of tracks from Baker Street Junction to Aldgate Junction making this section of track one of the most intensely used on the London Underground network.

The typical service in trains per hour (tph) is:[37]

• 6 tph Clockwise via Liverpool Street and Tower Hill
• 6 tph To Hammersmith via King's Cross St Pancras and Paddington

The typical service in trains per hour (tph) is:[37]

• 6 tph Eastbound to Barking
• 6 tph Westbound to Hammersmith via Paddington

The Metropolitan line is the only line to operate express services, though currently this is only during peak times (Westbound 06:30–09:30 / Eastbound 16:00–19:00). Fast services run non-stop between Wembley Park, Harrow-on-the-Hill and Moor Park. Semi-fast services run non-stop between Wembley Park and Harrow-on-the-Hill.[38]

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour (tph) is:[39]

• 12 tph Eastbound to Aldgate
• 2 tph Westbound to Amersham (all stations)
• 2 tph Westbound to Chesham (all stations)
• 8 tph Westbound to Uxbridge (all stations)

Off-peak services to/from Watford terminate at Baker Street

The typical peak time service in trains per hour (tph) is:[39]

• 14 tph Eastbound to Aldgate
• 2 tph Westbound to Amersham (fast in the evening peak only)
• 2 tph Westbound to Chesham (fast in the evening peak only)
• 4 tph Westbound to Watford (semi-fast in the evening peak only)
• 6 tph Westbound to Uxbridge (all stations)

Farringdon is in Transport for London's Travelcard Zone 1.

All National Rail services at Farringdon are served by Thameslink trains between St Pancras International and City Thameslink using part of the City Widened Lines and Snow Hill Tunnel respectively.

The new Thameslink timetable through London Bridge was introduced in May 2018, the current off peak service is as follows:

• Southbound
  • 4 tph to Brighton via Gatwick Airport (Thameslink)
  • 2 tph to Horsham via Gatwick Airport (Thameslink)
  • 2 tph to Gatwick Airport via Redhill (Thameslink)
  • 2 tph to Rainham via Greenwich, Charlton, Abbey Wood, Dartford, Gravesend and Gillingham (Thameslink)
  • 2 tph to Orpington
  • 4 tph to Sutton, 2 tph via Wimbledon and 2 tph via Mitcham Junction.
• Northbound
  • 4 tph to Bedford via St Pancras International, St Albans City, Luton Airport and Luton Town. (operated by Thameslink)
  • 2 tph to Luton Town via St Pancras International, St Albans City and Luton Airport
  • 4 tph to St Albans City via St Pancras International
  • 2 tph to Kentish Town via St Pancras International
  • 2 tph to Cambridge via St Pancras International, Stevenage and Hitchin (Thameslink)
  • 2 tph to Peterborough via St Pancras International, Stevenage and Hitchin (Thameslink)

After midnight, on all days, a half-hourly service runs between Bedford and Three Bridges.[40]

Prior to 2009, Thameslink services also ran to Moorgate via Barbican with trains diverging of the core route east of the platforms at Farringdon, this section of line was closed as part of the Thameslink Programme which involved the construction of a new ticket hall and the lengthening of platforms at Farringdon to enable platform extensions to accommodate longer 12 carriage trains which covered over the junction in the process.

Farringdon is in Transport for London's Travelcard Zone 1.