[nito]

London's latest shopping centre; Westfield London is about to open. The three stations serving the centre are already open, but one jewel that hasn't been noticed yet is the bus station.

It doesn't quite look like a bus station as work is still progressing, but this building - the Dimco Building is grade II listed. It dates back over 100 years and was home to the first electricity generating facility in Europe. More recently it saw use in the climax of that old film favourite - Who Framed Roger Rabbit!






Woolwich Arsenal
Woolwich Arsenal is a station that has been open since 1849 to serve Woolwich and the nearby Royal Arsenal which dealt with all of the British armed forces ordnance for several centuries. These days the Royal Arsenal site is being redeveloped into offices and residential apartments and this has created a requirement for new transport links.

At present the North Kent Line serves the station which runs into Central London and out into Kent, but from early 2009, the DLR is expected to serve the station via a new tunnel under the Thames. Work is ahead of schedule at present and only cosmetic work is needed to open the station to the public, which has two entrances - one to the North Kent Line platforms, and a new street entrance. Woolwich will host the shooting events at the 2012 Olympics.

Another station will open by 2017 in Woolwich, but this will be seperate from the Woolwich Arsenal interchange (200m to the north and at the centre of the Royal Arsenal site) due to the different alignment of Crossrail.


In the below plan, the station would be built north-south on the little park seperate the buildings at the centre of the site. Woolwich Arsenal station is just off picture at the centre bottom.




A little known fact is that Arsenal FC - the Premiership club who are now located in North London - were originally from Woolwich, hence why they are called Arsenal and are hence nicknamed the Gunners.

The present Woolwich Arsenal North Kent Line platforms








The soon-to-open Woolwich Arsenal DLR platforms











































All pictures courteous of flickr.com