Paddington tube station has something that NO other tube station has! What is it? It could be any number of things, such as being the only deep level accessible tube station on the Bakerloo line (even though its not even step free from train to street – and by the way it isn’t the only deep level tube station on that line with accessibility from platform to street anyhow – but that’s a secret essentially because its not something TfL advertises).
In fact this mystery thing is all down to the tube station’s history. The station’s very design in fact. But first, what’s happened for this apparent error to be put right? As some might guess, its the new parts of the tube station that everyone’s banging on about! After lengthy delays it finally opened on the 20th September 2024. Here’s the Metro on the paper’s dedicated TfL page written just five days after opening:
Accessibility boost at Paddington. Metro 25th September 2024.
The text from the above Metro article is as follows (for better readability):
Customers can benefit from a new ticket hall at Paddington Tube station, which provides direct, step-free access from street to platform on the Bakerloo line for the first time, via two lifts. At more than three times the size of the previous ticket hall, the new entrance has more than doubled the number of ticket gates. In addition, there is improved signage to help customers navigate the station. The major upgrade will also make it more convenient for those with accessibility requirements who previously used the longer, indirect step-free route to the Bakerloo line, via the lifts at the Elizabeth line entrance and then the connecting passenger tunnel.
Bigger and better
The new ticket hall is part of the Paddington Square development, owned and funded by Great Western Developments Ltd and developed by Sellar. It sits below an 18-storey crystalline building in the shape of a geometric cube.
The public space includes shops, restaurants and offices, as well as a piazza featuring outdoor public art commissions from internationally acclaimed artists.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said: ‘Bringing more step-free access to London’s transport network is a key priority, especially at busy hubs. Paddington station is one of London’s busiest stations and an historic and vital part of London’s transport infrastructure. ‘I want everyone to be able to use it, so I’m delighted that the new ticket hall will give the Bakerloo line direct step-free access for the first time.
‘I’m also excited to see the Paddington Square regeneration plans develop, giving a boost to the local area and helping to build a fairer, greener and more prosperous London for everyone.’
TfL has also recently completed the relocation of National Express airport coach services from Bishop’s Bridge Road to Eastbourne Terrace, next to the new Elizabeth line station.The Metro/TfL article does indeed describe Paddington as having an ‘accessibility boost’ but what it doesn’t describe is a considerable accessibility slight which was practically begun with the opening of Paddington’s tube station in 1913!
The new station area design does make the Bakerloo station look a bit archaic if anything! Conversely one could say Paddington is now very generously supplied with lifts and accessible routes to the Bakerloo line and of course there is a great resilience now since there’s so many lifts that afford accessibility! There being three completely new lift routes to both the Bakerloo and the Elizabeth line. Additionally many of the Bakerloo’s trains also now have an upgrade which includes grab rails and dedicated space for wheelchairs. Yes the Bakerloo’s still archaic in terms of level boarding and accessibility compared to other tube lines but nevertheless its a start.
Those improvements and route choice possibilities are a boon no doubt – but what this article is really about is the disadvantages of tube travel that Paddington tube station had originally caused.
What made Paddington Bakerloo station an issue?
The very design of Paddington tube station – which was in due course copied by a lot of other new tube stations was touted as innovative and modern. And yet some very intensive research reveals the design had been questionable question on several aspects – including safety and accessibility.
It was the first new station to have escalators, and as a cost saving measure, the emergency stairs were incorporated into the escalator shaft. This was done at the request of Lord Ashfield, then the managing director of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London. Very interestingly at the time this new innovation was known as a ‘dead staircase’ rather than emergency stairs. The reason for that name being used was because the escalators were known as a ‘moving staircase’, so the other was sort of self descriptive.
The act of incorporating the dead staircase with the moving staircase later proved to be disastrously fatal – thus in an ironic way its an entirely apt name – but that’s for another post since this is about the lasting impact Paddington station had upon the whole issue of accessibility.
What makes Paddington different is this. Not the whole poster but the colour poster depicted in the middle of the display! The poster highlights the fact that Paddington station had a brand new (and evidently better design) of tube station that opened on 1st December 1913.
Paddington tube station opens 1st December 1913. Image has been cropped from the main one shown at Paddington Bakerloo station.
Its the fact Paddington tube station has escalators! AND emergency stairs! Oh but it’s got those even now, what’s the game eh? Back in 1913 this was the start of what one could plausibly describe as several negatives for the tube system. One of those alas resulted in a mortarium that banned disabled people from using the tube and that was because they couldn’t use escalators. This restriction was finally lifted in 1993 (Hansard).
A guy known as Bumper Harris was reputedly employed a couple of years earlier used to ease people’s fears of the brand new (and then experimental) escalators at Earl’s Court. (A station that has doubtless retained its lifts whilst having escalators as an add-on – and that should have been the model to follow and not Paddington’s). Whether ‘Bumper Harris’ happened isn’t for certain – however the modus at the time would have been to allay abled people’s fears of using something other than the lifts. And not in a million years to promote any idea that disabled people could use the tube! Bumper Harris did in fact exist but uncertainty on the story leaves one with just an idea of what actually went on. Whether Bumper Harris had indeed demonstrated that these new escalators could be used with ease, the ensuing construction of numerous escalator banks across the tube system soon caused London Underground to place limits on who could thus access the tube system.
Indemnity forms for which the blind, ‘invalids in chairs’ and others for example were issued forcing people to sign these in order to even use the London underground. These forms essentially signed away any rights should they use the tube and some mishap of some sort should occur. The London Passenger Transport Board was quite resolute there should be no easy means by which disabled people could use the tube.
Paddington tube station of 1913 was no doubt an advertisement for the future – tube stations with escalators only. Of course this new modernity was for those who could move with relative ease and as a result accessibility was the biggest victim of this new design.
The escalators at Paddington Bakerloo with the emergency fixed staircase in between. This central fixed stair feature was first used on the London Underground at Paddington in 1913 and largely adopted as standard from then on.
In a nutshell Paddington is (at the time of writing) unique on the London Underground – as well as having accessibility which what the station should have had from the start, its the only tube station to have retained its original escalator/emergency stairs arrangement PLUS having new lifts and modern emergency stairs! Thus it has become the first example of a tube station to have an upgrade that retains this archaic design of escalators/fixed emergency stairs.
There is no doubt the early tube systems sought to have level boarding at every opportunity (even though such a notion wasn’t in the consciousness at the time). What it means is the station designers conceptualised that access to the new underground platforms should be level from street throughout and this was managed at a number of tube stations by way of lifts – depending on land rights and wayleaves etc. The step onto the trains was a different thing altogether, but the idea was the fewer steps along the way there was the better. Sadly with the ‘upgrade’ these stations later received (which was of course escalators rather than lifts) the very possibility of improved accessibility was entirely lost.
Instead of lifts as had been the standard up until then, and starting with Paddington everything was based around escalators. There’s no arguing that escalators are quick and they also manage passenger flows better than lifts can. Not just that, the potential for revenue also got increased because advertising placed along the full length of escalators was far more productive than a mere handful of adverts placed about the interior of a lift. In fact a whole post could be written on the massive advantages escalators have over lifts. But let’s face it, in this safety conscious era, there’s no denying that lifts have a greater safety factor than escalators could ever have.
A result of Paddington tube station was that lifts needed to be phased out completely. New tube stations after Paddington had absolutely no lifts anywhere in their build and many resolutely followed the Paddington design of escalator/fixed stairs. There was a boom phase where escalators were built at most of London Underground’s central core stations. Some stations kept their lifts – but that was because they were quiet and didn’t require this massive new modernisation. One example would be Caledonian Road. Its fully level from street to platform to this day – and only because the station wasn’t seen as busy enough to require escalators instead of lifts.
The early tube lines came with full level access from street to platform! Caledonian Road is one of a number of such examples around the system that remain in use.
Separate emergency stairs! Paddington Bakerloo is now a facility with a proper means of emergency egress. A set of fixed ‘dead’ stairs alongside escalators such as first innovated at Paddington cannot be deemed suitable in terms of emergencies that might arise!
As will be discussed in a future post, the 1913 designed tube station at Paddington was a compromise on safety and a design that led the operating authority into a false sense of security. For the purposes of this post, it is accessibility that is the focus. Besides, the discussion of accessible lifts at Paddington has been an aside of sorts since the Elizabeth line opened two years ago, but with the new tube ticket hall and additional lifts, the station’s accessibility has finally been thrust into the limelight. Everyone is saying wow there’s full accessibility at the station! But if it hadn’t been for the design that was used in 1913, there could have been accessibility on the tube far earlier than anyone might have envisaged.
Knightsbridge will become the second such tube station to have a classic escalator/emergency staircase arrangement (from the Brompton Road/Sloane Street entrances) PLUS lifts AND new emergency stairs, although this significance wont be as obvious as it is at Paddington.
To recap, absolutely no other tube station upgrade has this unique arrangement of both old and new – in other words there’s none with a Paddington style escalator shaft plus new lifts! At least not yet! One other – Knightsbridge will follow suit in due course – maybe later this year, maybe early 2025. It too will have this unique combination that Paddington has.
Perhaps more interesting is the fact Knightsbridge had lifts at one time and those were replaced by the Paddington model of escalators/stairs. What it means however is when the new Hooper Court entrance does open, Knightsbridge is going to be like Paddington in that it has new lifts and emergency stairs too. The old escalator/emergency stairs mix shall remain too – just to remind others this particular design continues to exist.
There’s no doubt things have come full circle. The way of doing things on the early tube system prior to the opening of Paddington tube station in 1913 had undoubtedly been the right approach after all. Yet its taken more than a century to correct the historic error that began on 1st December 1913 at the station that started what was no doubt a backward trend on the tube system.
NOTE: I have just discovered that Jago Hazzard has done a video with some slightly similar information as my post and that was published perhaps a few hours before I had published mine. I didn’t know about it as I don’t subscribe to his channel however it was part of a list of suggestions Youtube had given me for my late night viewing. Although I can’t comment on those who have speech as their forte, such as Jago, especially their means of earning in an income and the rest of it (because I don’t have those abilities), well at least I can see I’m not the only one to have suggested that the opening of Paddington tube station in 1913 has been a cause of some certain problems. Even in the comments on that video someone makes the joke that the tube originally came with lifts and then they practically ripped all those out for these new escalators!