Angel tube station

Location

On Islington High Street, the station provides access to several nearby Off West End, or Fringe theatre venues including the Old Red Lion Theatre, Sadler's Wells Theatre, the King's Head Theatre and the Almeida Theatre. It is also the nearest station to the main campus of City University and Chapel Market, a London street market, and the antiques market and dealers of Camden Passage. Between Angel and Old Street is the disused City Road station.

History

Angel station was originally built by the City & South London Railway (C&SLR), and opened on 17 November 1901 as the northern terminus of a new extension from Moorgate. The station building was designed by Sydney Smith and was on the corner of City Road and Torrens Street. On 12 May 1907, the C&SLR opened a further extension from Angel to Euston and Angel became a through station.

As with many of the C&SLR's stations, it was originally built with a single central island platform serving two tracks in a single tunnel – an arrangement still seen at Clapham North and Clapham Common (as of 2015). Access to the platforms from street level was via three Euston Anderson electric lifts before the rebuilding of the station. When the C&SLR line was closed for tunnel reconstruction in the early 1920s to accommodate larger trains, the station façade was reclad with tiling and the lifts were replaced by new ones from Otis.

Station rebuilding

For years since its opening, the station regularly suffered from overcrowding and had a very narrow island platform (barely 12 feet (3.7 m) in width), which constituted a major safety issue and caused justified fear among passengers. Consequently, the station was comprehensively rebuilt in the early 1990s. A new section of tunnel was excavated for a new northbound platform, and the southbound platform was rebuilt to completely occupy the original 30-foot tunnel, leaving it wider than most deep-level platforms on the system. The lifts and the ground-level building were closed and a new station entrance was opened on 10 August 1992 around the corner in Islington High Street together with the northbound platform while the southbound platform opened on 17 September 1992. Because of the distance between the new entrance and the platforms, and their depth, two flights of escalators were required, aligned approximately at a right angle.

The station today

The station's ticket hall has a sculpture of an Angel by Kevin Boys. Angel is also one of the number of stations to have only escalator access to the platforms.

Escalators

With a vertical rise of 27 metres (89 ft) and a length of 60 metres (200 ft), Angel station has the longest escalators on the Underground, and the fourth-longest set of escalators in Western Europe (after Náměstí Míru in the Prague Metro at 87 metres (285 ft), Västra skogen in the Stockholm Metro at 67 metres (220 ft) and Kamppi station in the Helsinki Metro at 64 metres (210 ft)). The escalators at Angel were also the longest in the United Kingdom until they were surpassed in 2008 by those at Heathrow Terminal 5A, to connect the main building with the people moving system to the satellite terminals.

Station improvements

The station was refurbished (as of 2015) and work began on 2 January 2007. Additional CCTV cameras and Help Points were installed, bringing the total to 77 cameras in the station and 9 Help Points (which were upgraded with new induction loops) to better aid hearing-impaired passengers. In addition, new communications equipment was introduced and damaged signs were replaced with new ones.

Former siding

When Angel was opened, a long dead-end siding was provided for train stabling, converging from the left onto the northbound line just south of the station. This was retained over the years but eventually it was closed on 23 January 1959 (along with the signal box at the south end of the platform) to simplify through running. The siding lay derelict and unused until the rebuilding scheme. Part of the siding was used as the northbound diversion tunnel, which branched off the existing northbound line, cut through into the end of the siding and continued along it until it branched off left to the new northbound platform.

Services and connections

Train frequencies vary throughout the day, but generally operate every 3–6 minutes between 06:03 and 00:25 in both directions.

London Bus routes 4, 19, 30, 38, 43, 56, 73, 153, 205, 214, 274, 341, 394 and 476, and night routes N19, N38, N41, N73 and N205 serve the station.

Future proposals

Angel is a proposed station on the Crossrail 2 (Chelsea-Hackney line) project. Depending on the route constructed, it would be between King's Cross St. Pancras and Dalston Junction or Hackney Central. It was officially safeguarded as part of the route in 2007, although there had been proposals for a route for some time previously and safeguarding had been in place since 1991. This would provide an interchange between the Crossrail line and the Northern Line.

In media

The station's escalators and the southbound platform were featured in the Bollywood hit film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.