Arsenal Tube Station - Structure

Structure

The station is in a narrow Victorian residential street: when built, the station building was squeezed incongruously between residential properties on each side, occupying the width of just two terraced houses. Even after the surface building was rebuilt in the early 1930s and widened, with a further house being demolished, it has one of the narrowest frontages of any underground station. It is also unusual in not having any bus routes pass its entrance, though routes 4, 19, 106 and 236 serve nearby Blackstock Road.

Unusually for a "deep level" tube station, Arsenal possesses neither escalators nor lifts. Instead, a sloping passageway leads down to the platforms. This is due to the combination of the tunnels being both relatively shallow at this point and being some distance from the station entrance (being underneath the East Coast Main Line). Due to short flights of stairs at both ends of the passageway the station is not wheelchair accessible. When the station was rebuilt in the early 1930s an extra tunnel was dug to platform level from the main access passage in anticipation of increased traffic, which is now used to handle the large crowds on match days. The station has a "tidal" system unique on the Underground network, with a narrow section on one side divided from the main passageway by a full-height fence. The narrow section is used on match days for the lighter flow, according to time of day - for passengers catching trains before matches, or leaving the station afterwards.