Cutty Sark DLR station in Greenwich, one of the busiest stations in south London, is to reopen on Monday March 23.
The station - the key access route to Greenwich town centre and the Maritime Greenwich world heritage site - has been closed for almost 10 months to allow all four escalators to be replaced.
The project, which cost £5.2m, has been described as the most complex escalator replacement scheme ever undertaken on the DLR or the London Underground.
Its completion will come as a huge relief to thousands of commuters and tourists who have been forced to travel via Greenwich train and DLR station, about a 10-minute walk from the town centre, since May 31 last year.
In late 2024, when all four of the escalators were broken, the station was branded a “national disgrace” and “not fit for purpose”.
It took engineers 17 weeks to build each escalator. Cutty Sark was built as a “cut and cover” station, which restricted access, meaning steel beams and a pulley system had to be temporarily installed to move each giant piece of each escalator into position manually.
Some of the bigger sections were brought in by train - not a DLR train but a bespoke freight train.
Rob Rusz, programme manager for the DLR, said: “This has been incredibly difficult. This station was built as a ‘cut and cover’ station, which meant originally the escalators were put in with a crane, and the station was built on top of the escalators.
“This time round, we have had to cut them into seven pieces, take them out to street level, then get the new ones manufactured in seven pieces and bring them in and build them up from scratch once we have got them inside the station.”
Cutty Sark is the third busiest station on the DLR network, after Canary Wharf and Limehouse, with more than 7.6m entries and exits a year.
TfL initially thought the work would take about six months to complete. But when the station closed last May, passengers were warned that it would take until “spring 2026” before it could be reopened.
TfL also promised that the station would be open in time for the London Marathon, which takes place this year on Sunday April 26. Many thousands of spectators use the station to line the race route.
“We were aiming for March 31 but we are going to reopen on March 23, so we are a week early,” Mr Rusz said.
“This station always struggles with capacity on Marathon day, but with four new escalators and a new lift we should be able to deal with it this year.”
DLR trains ran through the station without stopping during the works. Cutty Sark is on the DLR’s Lewisham branch, which provides a direct connection to Canary Wharf.
TfL bought bespoke escalators from the Schindler factory in Slovakia. They were assembled piece by piece, with the help of Schindler engineers, within the tightly confined station.
Prior to the work being carried out, passengers using the station had to walk down - or up - 121 steps on a concrete staircase to reach their train or exit the station.
The escalators had suffered huge problems with a lack of reliability for years.
Before the work began last year, there were times when all four escalators were out of service - while the lift had to be restricted to only three passengers at a time because it was at risk of breaking down.
A brand new lift able to carry more passengers has been fitted as part of the upgrade.
TfL was landed with the escalator problem at Cutty Sark because the station was one of many built under a PFI deal for the DLR branch extension between Mudchute and Lewisham.
This original contract included the upgrade of the escalators and the lift – which became less of a priority as the 30-year PFI contract came to an end.
The escalators kept failing, and the lift had to have its speed and capacity reduced to safeguard against a total breakdown.
The new lift will be much faster - taking passengers from the platform to the surface in 45 seconds - and has a capacity of eight passengers, twice as many as the limit on the lift it replaces.
The new escalators should last “30 to 40 years”, with a major overhaul after 15 to 20 years.
Teams have been working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the last six weeks to complete the project. Nine firms of contractors and more than 300 workers in total have been involved.
“Probably the hardest thing wasn’t the fabric of the station building but not knowing what we were taking apart,” said one engineer. “Having to rebuild the station means an escalator job becomes a massive building job.”
The “public toilet blue” wall panels have been replaced with white panels to make the station feel less gloomy.
The new escalators will have a “run slow” setting to save power when there are fewer passengers using the station.
They have also been fitted with protective brushes, first trialled at South Kensington station, to prevent children getting their feet caught between the steps and suffering horrific injuries.
