DLR escalators at Cutty Sark all broken

[Taunton]

At one of the deepest and busiest DLR stations, all escalators out of action for months now. Came through (and up and down the stairs) only last night.

MSN

Just to clarify the story :

- No additional staff were visible, the lift queue (and operation) was do-it-yourself.
- This is not one of the oldest stations, it opened in 1999.
- There has been no sign of any works in progress.
- Greenwich DLR station, well away from the centre, is only "10 minutes away" for a fit athlete. To get there from Cutty Sark is not intuitive.
- There's no information on why all four escalators are simultaneously failed.

 

[Haywain]

And trying to use the lift today it refused to move with more than five people on board, claiming to be overloaded. I think it was the fifth time of asking before we could get in and get to the surface.

 

[act94]

It’s mad that TfL are proposing spending huge sums on extending the network when some of the stations are in an absolutely horrid condition, particularly on the Greenwich branch south of the river.

 

[Taunton]

DLR stations are normally well presented, but it's true the ones from (the new) Island Gardens to Lewisham, done as a separate PFI to the rest of the system, are of a very inferior style, down to a minimal budget with much just rough plain concrete. The system also seems to have trouble with its escalator maintenance contract, the ones at Tower Gateway also having multiple spells out of action. Most everything else works fine.

 

[Mikey C]

Cutty Sark has been a shambles for years.

It's interesting that the Lewisham extension and the Jubilee Line extension were built at roughly the same time. One was a flagship project, with massive and state of the art stations. The other was done a much much smaller budget...

 

[Geogregor]

Cutty Sark has been a shambles for years.

It must be one of the worst designed stations in London after WWII.

 

[Taunton]

The Mudchute to Lewisham extension was built as a separately funded Private Finance Initiative, done by CGL Rail (City, Greenwich, Lewisham), which was a grouping that included longstanding Docklands area contractors Mowlem, who actually built it, and some finance sources. What was got for the money spent was actually pretty good, but it was a bargain basement project. Cutty Sark station was a last-minute addition after the rest of the project was designed, it did open with the rest of it but there was quite a scrabbling and compromise on the arrangements, with it ending up where it did. There's a fuller summary of it on an Ian Visits web page here:

TfL to take full ownership of the DLR’s Lewisham extension

It looks and operates like the rest of the DLR, but the tunnels and tracks between Island Gardens and Lewisham are owned by a private company.

www.ianvisits.co.uk

I like to think these sorts of projects, compared to traditional mainstream ones, are examples of getting 90% of the functionality for 50% of the cost. Rough at the edges but does all the basics. I doubt if CGL were still responsible for the infrastructure that the broken escalators would have been left untouched for so long.

 

[sprunt]

Are there still general difficulties with getting hold of escalator parts? Various escalators on the Metrolink in Manchester are/have been long term out of action supposedly due to problems with parts.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Are there still general difficulties with getting hold of escalator parts? Various escalators on the Metrolink in Manchester are/have been long term out of action supposedly due to problems with parts.

I can't remember where I read it now, so unable to link to a source/quote, but I read something the other day suggesting that TfL/DLR had managed to acquire the necessary parts but it is in fact a shortage of suitable engineers holding up this particular project.

 

[Harpo]

I doubt if CGL were still responsible for the infrastructure that the broken escalators would have been left untouched for so long.

Absolutely not! I knew a few people there. CGL’s client tolerated no deviations from spec!

 

[Indigo Soup]

At one of the deepest and busiest DLR stations, all escalators out of action for months now. Came through (and up and down the stairs) only last night.

A couple of months ago my wife and I - very much not from the area - were visiting Greenwich. That must have been around the time that the escalators went completely out of service.

We arrived at the main entrance to find that it was shut. It was not at all obvious that we needed to go around the back of a residential building and enter through a fire escape next to a multi-storey car park, then go down the stairs!

Perhaps locals are used to it, but the station is clearly at least partly aimed at tourist and visitor use... hardly an inviting prospect.

 

[jon81uk]

A couple of months ago my wife and I - very much not from the area - were visiting Greenwich. That must have been around the time that the escalators went completely out of service.

We arrived at the main entrance to find that it was shut. It was not at all obvious that we needed to go around the back of a residential building and enter through a fire escape next to a multi-storey car park, then go down the stairs!

Perhaps locals are used to it, but the station is clearly at least partly aimed at tourist and visitor use... hardly an inviting prospect.

Thats unusual. When I lived in the area the usual detour was via the stairs next to the lift, directly opposite the main entrance (next to Subway sandwich shop).
But I think that was when they could operate the escalators in one direction. I assume therefore if the escalators are compleltly closed in all directions and not able to be used as fixed stairs they have to use the fire exit as an entrance so its one staircase in (down only) and the other staircase normally used when escalators are unavailable is up only.

 

[crablab]

Are there still general difficulties with getting hold of escalator parts? Various escalators on the Metrolink in Manchester are/have been long term out of action supposedly due to problems with parts.

Same with the escalators at Reading. I don't think I've ever seen all of them in operation at one time.
There seems to be some sort of rolling refurbishment programme now, but it's a bit glacial.

 

[DGP]

A couple of months ago my wife and I - very much not from the area - were visiting Greenwich. That must have been around the time that the escalators went completely out of service.

We arrived at the main entrance to find that it was shut. It was not at all obvious that we needed to go around the back of a residential building and enter through a fire escape next to a multi-storey car park, then go down the stairs!

Perhaps locals are used to it, but the station is clearly at least partly aimed at tourist and visitor use... hardly an inviting prospect.

I'm confused about this since the "stairs" entrance/exit is directly opposite the "escalators entrance/exit in the pedestrian walkway known (apparently) as Cutty Sark Shopping Centre. There are no residential properties on the same block as that "stairs" entrance nor a multi-storey car park. However it doesn't alter the fact that the escalators have been having issues for a long period of time and the long suffering regular users of that station are rightly feeling aggrieved by the lack of progress in fixing them - and indeed about the lack of information from the DLR.

 

[Farigiraf]

When I used the station earlier this year I couldn't even find the entrance for a good few minutes, as the main way in was closed, and the sign showing the way to go was pointing the wrong way. After around 5 minutes, I found the alternative entrance secretly tucked away between two shops and crowds of people. The lifts were working - just barely - but no escalator. I walked down the stairs instead - took longer than expected. In total, getting from the actual ship/museum onto a DLR train took me about the same time as the DLR to Bank
I'm surprised they weren't advising passengers to walk through the foot tunnel and use Island Gardens instead!

 

[Indigo Soup]

I'm confused about this since the "stairs" entrance/exit is directly opposite the "escalators entrance/exit in the pedestrian walkway known (apparently) as Cutty Sark Shopping Centre. There are no residential properties on the same block as that "stairs" entrance nor a multi-storey car park. However it doesn't alter the fact that the escalators have been having issues for a long period of time and the long suffering regular users of that station are rightly feeling aggrieved by the lack of progress in fixing them - and indeed about the lack of information from the DLR.

We were directed to the Welland Street 'entrance'. Looking at Google Street View, it may have been a loading dock rather than a car park, and I didn't knock on any doors to find out if the building was occupied by homes or offices (though it does look very residential).

It may well have been a unidirectional flow arrangement as suggested by @jon81uk; not being local, our experience was of being sent away from the main entrance to some unknown back entrance and down a fire escape. It would not encourage us to make a return visit.

 

[Taunton]

In truth, the alternate entrance is poorly signed. Here it is

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

www.google.com

Main entrance on the left, with the shutters across (in June 2022; yet another escalators all bust period), with the alternative emergency entrance on the right, but set back and easily missed (including by our visitors, I have had to reinforce instructions more than once). The temporary sign shown outside the shuttered main entrance is sometimes there, sometimes not, and sometimes pushed to point the wrong way.

 

[jon81uk]

In truth, the alternate entrance is poorly signed. Here it is

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

www.google.com

Main entrance on the left, with the shutters across (in June 2022; yet another escalators all bust period), with the alternative emergency entrance on the right, but set back and easily missed (including by our visitors, I have had to reinforce instructions more than once). The temporary sign shown outside the shuttered main entrance is sometimes there, sometimes not, and sometimes pushed to point the wrong way.

That is the staircase usually used as a temporary entrance, but not what @Indigo Soup experiance.

This is the fire exit currently being used as an entrance from what has been described https://maps.app.goo.gl/WsaJ3XTyZRpRkUzY6

 

[Taunton]

I've seen reference there to a one-way system on the two stairways, but knowing the station I just use the same one down and up.

It's a surprising vertical distance, which the "number of steps" sign doesn't really communicate. I'll work out how different it is to the nearby stairway down into the Victorian foot tunnel under the river, where I delight (even at my time in life) in racing the rest of the family waiting for the lift ...

 

[Mikey C]

I've seen reference there to a one-way system on the two stairways, but knowing the station I just use the same one down and up.

It's a surprising vertical distance, which the "number of steps" sign doesn't really communicate. I'll work out how different it is to the nearby stairway down into the Victorian foot tunnel under the river, where I delight (even at my time in life) in racing the rest of the family waiting for the lift ...

Yes, it does feel a long way down, considering how close the tunnel portal at Greenwich station is.

 

[DGP]

We were directed to the Welland Street 'entrance'. Looking at Google Street View, it may have been a loading dock rather than a car park, and I didn't knock on any doors to find out if the building was occupied by homes or offices (though it does look very residential).

It may well have been a unidirectional flow arrangement as suggested by @jon81uk; not being local, our experience was of being sent away from the main entrance to some unknown back entrance and down a fire escape. It would not encourage us to make a return visit.

Thank you - I understand where you mean now. And I can understand why you wouldn't want to make a return visit.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Dec 2024 ==

I've seen reference there to a one-way system on the two stairways, but knowing the station I just use the same one down and up.

It's a surprising vertical distance, which the "number of steps" sign doesn't really communicate. I'll work out how different it is to the nearby stairway down into the Victorian foot tunnel under the river, where I delight (even at my time in life) in racing the rest of the family waiting for the lift ...

I've just been through Cutty Sark northbound and when my train reached Greenwich, the PSA announced that there were 120 steps to get from the platform to street level at Cutty Sark and advising people to get off at Greenwich. I can just manage the 100 steps on the Greenwich side of the Edwardian Foot Tunnel (opened 1902 so presumably being built whilst Victoria was on the throne) but any more and I'd probably need oxygen!

 

[Haywain]

According to an article from the London Evening Standard, the station is going to close this year for around 6 months for all 4 escalators to be replaced.

The date of the closure hasn't been revealed, but is not likely to be before the London Marathon in April.

One of the busiest stations in south London is to close for about six months to replace escalators that have suffered “shocking reliability” problems for at least three years, The Standard can reveal.

At present all four escalators are broken and have been since before Christmas. Some passengers claim that the escalators have barely been all in working order at the same time since the 2012 Olympics.

Passengers are required to climb 121 stairs to exit the station or face a lengthy queue to use a small lift.

The work will involve replacing all four escalators after a series of botched repairs – which has already cost £695,000 - failed to eradicate repeated breakdowns.

But this will require the station to be closed for a prolonged period likely to be around six months, according to well-informed sources...

Headline quoted above, I'm afraid I seem to be incapable of quoting more without being in front of a PC!

 

[Taunton]

Now I've heard everything ...

TfL Commissioner Andy Lord said he was “very aware” of the problems at Cutty Sark.

“I want to apologise to regular customers at Cutty Sark for the inconvenience they have had because of the shocking reliability of those escalators,” he said.


“There has been some really great work [in TfL] to see how we can come up with a plan quickly to both fund and replace those escalators.”

MSN

How on earth can the Commissioner, of all people, who is meant to represent the public against TfL etc, manage to say there has been "Some really great work in TfL" after all of this ongoing fiasco, on a system which TfL is wholly responsible for. One hears of 'Regulatory Capture' by organisations that regulators are meant to control in the public interest, but forcing the regulator to actually write such self-serving rubbish really takes the biscuit.

 

[torontoaddick]

The Commissioner is the boss of TfL, not a regulator who represents the public.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Are these the original as built escalators for when the station opened? Because if so, the fact that they have simply been keeping them going without full replacement for so long is in my view at least. Truly, negligent

 

[Dstock7080]

Station to close while all four escalators are replaced:
BBC London report:
Cutty Sark station to close for new escalators https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7g2kl67djo

The third-busiest station on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is to close to allow its four escalators to be replaced at an estimated cost of £4m.
BBC London asked when the station would close, and for how long, and TfL said it would confirm a timeline once its plans had been finalised.

 

[jon81uk]

Are these the original as built escalators for when the station opened? Because if so, the fact that they have simply been keeping them going without full replacement for so long is in my view at least. Truly, negligent

They have had major refurbishment in the last ten years with one escalator closed at a time making the station one way, not sure how much was replaced but it was a significant period of closure. But I think there are many other escalators on the Underground that are 25 years old too?

 

[Geogregor]

They have had major refurbishment in the last ten years with one escalator closed at a time making the station one way, not sure how much was replaced but it was a significant period of closure. But I think there are many other escalators on the Underground that are 25 years old too?

There are definitely older escalators in London, mostly much more reliable.

It is pretty obvious that this station was underspecified when build as part of PFI contract in the 90s. Cost cutting probably applied to escalators design too.

 

[Class15]

I need to travel there every week. I now use Island Gardens and walk through the foot tunnel instead. Cutty Sark is an absolute mess of a station currently.

 

[Geogregor]

I need to travel there every week. I now use Island Gardens and walk through the foot tunnel instead. Cutty Sark is an absolute mess of a station currently.

Why not using the other Greenwich station? Wouldn't walk be shorter?