The station at Brent Cross West opened on Sunday 10th December 2023. The station is located between Cricklewood and Hendon stations on the Midland Mainline.
Construction started in June 2020 with the site being cleared after the planning permission had been granted in May. The foundations of the station were begun in November 2020. The station has 4 platforms and has been given the code BCZ. It is within Zone 3 and appears on the new December 2023 Tube Map.
The station has been opened in preparation for the development of Brent Cross Town which is planned to have 6700 new homes and 3 million square feet of office space. The first of the residential areas is expected to be ready by the middle of 2024.
Thameslink serves the station with 6 trains per hour in each direction in the off-peak. 4 trains per hour northbound call all stations to St Albans City and 2 trains per hour call all stations, except Hendon, to Luton. Southbound there are 4 trains per hour to Sutton and 2 trains per hour to Rainham via Dartford.
Additional services in the peak include Luton to Orpington and some Bedford services. Services between Bedford and Three Bridges also call here during the night. Most of these series will use platforms 1 and 2 with some of the peak services using platforms 3 and 4. East Midlands Railway services pass through the station but do not stop here on their way between London St. Pancras and Luton, Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield.
The station’s east side opens onto what will become the new development. Outside are two new bus stops that the 189 bus will be rerouted to soon.
The station entrance is a giant glass and wood atrium that matches the height of the rest of the station. On the end of the roof is the station name with a pair of double arrows. Inside the atrium, there are plant beds with benches and there are giant hanging baskets suspended from the ceiling.
The left-hand side has the stairs and escalators up to the bridge and ticket hall level. The stairs and escalators are split into two sections with a mezzanine level between them. The lifts can also be accessed from this level.
Along the side of the escalator, there is artwork by Giles Round, an artist who grew up in Barnet, called Time Passes & still I think of you (for my mother). At the top is a waiting area for the lifts with some benches. The artwork continues into this area and the information about the artwork can be found here.
The west side leads out towards Staples Corner retail park. This side of the station is also large but is smaller and simpler than the east side using brick and glass.
This entrance is also enclosed whereas the east side is open to the British weather. It still features two lifts but only a single escalator and staircase that go all the way from street level to the bridge. Outside the entrance is a bus stop that appears to be new that the 316 is already serving.
The bridge across Midland Mainline is open to the public to be able to cross the railway at this point. There is artwork placed between the entrances and the ticket hall on both sides called Towards Barnet and Towards Brent by Elisa Cantarelli. The east side contains Towards Barnet and the west side contains Towards Brent.
The sides of the bridge are made from frosted glass which allows a decent amount of light through but does allow for views out over the railway. The ceiling has triangular sound-dampening panels that are arranged into larger triangles within the roof structure.
The bridge widens towards the centre for the ticket hall to be at right angles over the centre tracks of the Midland Mainline. Where the bridge and the ticket hall meet, the ceiling becomes a giant skylight and the north-facing side becomes a giant window looking up the Midland Mainline. Against the window, there are a pair of benches and an information board with a London Rail Services map and a Govia Thameslink Railway network map. At present, there is also a Christmas Tree.
In the ticket hall area, there is a standard National Rail gate line with Oyster/Contactless validators and barcode readers for e-tickets. Above the gate line, there are a set of departure boards, the first shows a list of the upcoming departures from all the platforms, then the next two show the next departure from platform 1 and 2 respectively and the other three show general information. Presumably, the 4th and 5th boards are intended to show platforms 3 and 4’s next departures as they occasionally showed a “train not stopping” message when services passed those platforms. The only thing the departure boards need is to show the current time.
To the right of the gate line are 3 small ticket machines, as this is an Oyster and Contactless enabled station, these are probably the most common type of ticket that is going to be used so these ticket machines will likely be sufficient. Next to the ticket machines is another information board showing the onward travel information and where to go for rail replacement buses. The rail replacement buses for this station will use the bus stops on the eastern side of the station where the 189 will also serve.
To the left of the ticket machine is the station office. The station is planned to be staffed 24 hours a day.
Once through the gate line, there is another giant window looking down the midland mainline to the south. On each side, there are stairs and escalators to access the platforms. The access to platforms 3 and 4 is gated off so the platforms cannot be accessed when there are no services scheduled to stop there.
The platforms are nearly identical between the two sides. Both are island platforms that can accommodate a 12 car Class 700, although 8 car 700s will serve the station as other stations on this route cannot fit 12 cars. There are a set of stairs and escalators for each end, similar to stations like Reading. As platforms 1 and 2 are going to be used most frequently, there are additional facilities on this side of the station.
The ends of the platforms are out in the open with waiting rooms transitioning the platforms to be undercover. Under the south side stairs and escalators on platforms 1 and 2 there are toilets, on platforms 3 and 4 this is an open space below the stairs that will probably be used as storage.
The lifts are located between the stairs, there are 2 lifts down to platforms 1 and 2 but only a single lift to platforms 3 and 4.
Under the north-facing stairs and escalator on platforms 1 and 2, there is a space for a retail unit such as a coffee shop, this space is used for a storage cupboard on platforms 3 and 4.
The covered part of the platforms at the north end of the station finishes with another pair of waiting rooms before the platforms continue out in the open. The waiting rooms feature a reasonable number of seats for their size and have a departure screen at one end and heating strips on the ceiling which was especially nice on a cold day.
Brent Cross West has to be the most impressive of all the new stations to open recently, even rivalling the Elizabeth Line stations. It’s big by choice rather than necessity like the Elizabeth Line stations, it feels like a crossover of Abbey Wood and Custom House - both good stations in their own right.
It’s a little bit oversized for now while the development around it is still under construction, just like Barking Riverside, but there were always a couple of regular passengers in the station while I was there and others using the bridge to access the other side of the railway. Hopefully new stations around the country get build with bolder designs like this rather than the standard array of generic buildings and bridges.
