Blackfriars Tube finally Re-Opens after 3 year closure

As from 20th February 2012 finally you won't see Blackfriars station with a crossed out line running through it on the London Underground map or additions like the one below.


Train map on the platforms by IanVisits
As I think I've mentioned on the blog in the past and to people I meet in person, I rarely get excited about new station openings, unless they are ones I use on a regular basis. Blackfriars will be useful for me on the occasions the London Bloggers Meetup group is held in a pub near the bridge!

As that's not particularly regularly, I've left it for people who are much better than me at covering station openings & re-openings to explain & show what went on yesterday. IanVisits has a great post with lots of pictures of the shiny new station.  He notes how the opening caught many by surprise: "Several months late, or a week early, depending on how you look at it, Blackfriars Tube station unexpectedly opened to the public this morning".


New ticket hall and entrance by IanVisits
I like the happy faces of the staff in the control room


New control room at Blackfriars Tube by IanVisits 
The crew over at Londonist also covered the re-opening and were there for the pre rush-hour rush:


Photo from Londonist
"Fresh from a closure that lasted three years, Blackfriars has been completely rebuilt. The station now sports cream tiling throughout, replacing the Seventies-looking brown and orange pattern of its previous incarnation."

Paul Robertson also has a set of photos and a video is here. Ironically Paul notes that although shiny, as with most things on the London Underground,  there were still problems:


Escalator Notice by Paul Robertson
"On the very first day the station was open after a three-year modernisation programme, guess what? A broken-down escalator. Business as usual, basically."

Indeed!

Related post
Blackfriars Tube Station closed until 2011