TP had an early opportunity to take a trip on the new 3km line – which has been six years in the making – and explore impressive new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms ahead of Monday’s opening.

But perhaps the most striking aspect of our visit came on a half mile walk from Vauxhall train station to Nine Elms, where the case for investment in public transport connectivity for this area south of the Thames really hit home, writes deputy editor Steve Dale.

Everywhere you look, shiny new high rise developments and construction cranes dominate the skyline. The massive scale of investment includes the flagship conversion of the decommissioned coal fired power station at Battersea and is heavily dependent on the arrival of the Tube to its doorstep.

“As soon as the Northern Line Extension committed to coming down to this area it became the facilitator to draw in all this investment,” explains Transport for London’s project director Martin Gosling. “The fact we are connecting both Nine Elms and Battersea to within 15 minutes of the West End and the City and opening them up to the rest of the London Underground network is phenomenal for this area.”

Covid has of course decimated public transport patronage in London and across the UK; has the pandemic in any way harmed the business case underpinning the £1.1Bn investment in the Northern Line Extension, we wondered. Martin is adamant the project still very much stands up.

“We are reassessing things now in terms of passenger numbers after Covid, but the business case for this extension was so positive that it has not been detrimentally affected,” he says. “It is a fantastic investment, it will regenerate revenue, it will generate access and opportunity for the locals.”

To view a video interview with Martin on site, click here.

Arriving at the new Nine Elms station, our initial exploration is cut short when an emergency evacuation notice sounds. Testing the alarm system for Monday perhaps, we consider while filing back out of the station and onto the street.

As it turned out, the evacuation procedure was triggered after sensors detected excess dust in the tunnels. This soon passes and we’re able to re-enter the station, noting how well drilled for emergencies the station team is, who for two weeks prior to opening have been ‘shadow running’ the station as they would if it was filled with passengers.

Travelling down a bank of escalators we are met with a generously spacious platform area below and wait for a train to take us to our next destination. Social distancing here would pose far less of a challenge than at most underground stations in central London.

A brief trip later in a typical Northern Line train that one could describe as “well used” – but notably featuring maps with the extension’s two new stops represented – and we arrive into Battersea Power Station.

It is two sets of escalators to the surface this time, where the power station itself can be seen towering above, offset against the angular golden roof of the station’s entrance building. The roof design looks immediately iconic, but was not at all simple to build, contractor Ferrovial Laing O’Rourke’s project director David Darcy tells us with a grin.

Finishing touches are being made to a modern looking public realm space outside the entrance with benches and plants, and we are told that future development is being planned over and above the new station which required structural changes to the project.

“We are all very proud of this job,” says David. “We have faced our share of difficult times and challenges, but we have got through that and at the end of the day it has been an amazing project.”

To read more about the completion of the Northern Line Extension, see the upcoming October issue of Transportation Professional.