Busy London station to close for six months as TfL vows to end broken escalators fiasco

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. Cutty Sark DLR station – a key commuter station for Greenwich residents and the main access point for millions of visitors to the Maritime Greenwich world heritage site – has been blighted for years with one or more of its four escalators out of service.

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. A start date for the work has yet to be announced but the station is unlikely to close before the London marathon, which will be held on Sunday April 27. Greenwich is the start point for the marathon and many spectators watch the race as it passes through Greenwich’s historic town centre.

Transport for London has been hit by a storm of complaints about the lack of escalators at the station – including from one of its own board members. Peter Strachan told the TfL board on Wednesday: “I did ascend 121 steps at Cutty Sark last week. I am reasonably fit but I was fairly puffing at the top of it.”. 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 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.”. TfL’s chief operating officer Claire Mann, who has been put in charge of ending the Cutty Sark fiasco, told the TfL board: “It’s been a bit of a sorry tale of one escalator after the other going out, until eventually they all have failed.

“We have looked at out investment programme and brought forward funds to do a full replacement of all of the escalators. “We haven’t yet got a date when that work will start. But once complete it will absolutely transform the station. “It will mean we will have to shut the station to do the work because it will be so impactful, but that is certainly an urgent priority for my team this year. “As soon as we are aware of the start date, we will make sure that is communicated.”.

TfL has been inundated with freedom of information requests to explain why the escalators have been so unreliable – and demands for information about the repair schedule. In a FoI response last month, it said one escalator was working until last July, was taken out of service for a month after an inspection spotted faults, but has been out of service since September “due to an in-service fault with one of the steps at the top of the escalator”.

It “remains out of service awaiting repair whilst funding is secured”. A second escalator was withdrawn from service in October after an inspection found several faults “including a bearing failure in the main drive system”. TfL said: “Engineers are currently fully surveying this escalator to understand the necessary fixes needed to return the asset to customer service. Until the fix is understood there is no timescale available for when this escalator will be operational.”.

A third escalator was withdrawn from service in July due to a series of problems including “comb heights being out of tolerance and a brake lift failure”. The fourth escalator was withdrawn from service after a number of faults were spotted, including a “loud squeaking noise, which was further diagnosed as severe bearing failure on the main drive”. TfL said in its FoI response: “All four escalators remain under inspection from our engineering teams, they are identifying all issues with an aim to have a clear plan to return them to back into customer service.

“Given the age of these assets, and the fact that some parts required have long lead times, or complicated repair requirements (such as the drive bearing replacements), we do not currently have a timescale for this.”. Last December the state of the station was branded a “national disgrace” and “not fit for purpose”. The four escalators take passengers to and from the platform, via an intermediary mezzanine area.