Finsbury Park is an intermodal interchange station in North London for London Underground, National Rail and London Buses services. The station is the third busiest Underground station outside Zone 1, with over 33 million passengers using the station in 2019.
The station is named after the nearby Finsbury Park, one of the oldest of London's Victorian parks, opening in 1869.
The interchange consists of a National Rail station, a London Underground station and two bus stations, all interconnected.
The main entrances are by the eastern bus station on Station Place. The National Rail ticket office here lies in between one entrance marked by the Underground roundel symbol, while the other is marked by the National Rail symbol, and provides direct access to the main line platforms.
A new, larger western entrance by Wells Terrace and Goodwin Place opened in December 2019, as part of the upgrade of the station.
There is also a narrow side entrance to the south on the A503 Seven Sisters Road (open during peak times only. The complex is located in Travelcard Zone 2.
Finsbury Park is on the route of the East Coast Main Line from King's Cross to the north of England and Scotland. The southern section of this was built in stages during the 1840s and early 1850s by the Great Northern Railway (GNR). Tracks were first laid through Finsbury Park in 1850 to the GNR's temporary terminus at Maiden Lane just north of the permanent terminus at King's Cross (which opened in 1852).
The first station at Finsbury Park opened on 1 July 1861 and was originally named Seven Sisters Road (Holloway).
The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (GNP&BR) (now London Underground's Piccadilly line) opened on 15 December 1906 by David Lloyd George, then President of the Board of Trade, between Finsbury Park and Hammersmith in west London.
The tube railway originated as the Great Northern and Strand Railway (GN&SR) in 1899 and was initially supported by the GNR as a means of relieving congestion on its main line into King's Cross by constructing a tube line under the GNR's tracks from Alexandra Palace to King's Cross and then to the Strand.
The GN&SR was taken over in 1901 by a consortium led by Charles Yerkes before any work had been carried out and the section north of Finsbury Park was cancelled. The GN&SR was merged with the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway to form the GNP&BR.
The Northern City platforms became the southbound platforms for both the Piccadilly and Victoria lines which were connected to the previously dead-end tunnels to the north of the platforms.
The old southbound Piccadilly line platform then became the Victoria line northbound platform, with the northbound Piccadilly line platform unchanged.
New connecting tunnels were constructed. There are cross-over connections between each pair of northbound and southbound tunnels to enable stock transfers, given that the Victoria line is otherwise completely self-contained.
Step free access to both the Piccadilly and Victoria lines, as well as to platforms 1&2 and 5&6 of the National Rail station was completed in January 2019.
The new western entrance was constructed in collaboration with Telford Homes, the developer of "City North" - a residential and commercial development adjacent to the station. This new, larger entrance opened in December 2019, replacing an older entrance constructed in the 1970s, which closed in July 2016 as part of the City North development works.
A project to make the remaining platforms (3, 4, 7 & 8) step-free began in July 2021 and was completed in April 2023.
Duration of the video: 12:13 - 13:49
We’ll be seeing services by LNER, Great Northern, Hull Trains, Grand Central, Thameslink, Lumo and hopefully some freight as well in the duration of the video.
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I really enjoyed my time that was spent at Finsbury Park especially with the amount of variety I had included plus it was bit of a bonus to manage to see some freight bypassing however I would’ve spent longer at Finsbury Park but considering there was ongoing disruption in the Welwyn area I wouldn’t think it would’ve been possible.
My next station will be East Croydon which is situated on the Brighton Mainline so until then thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.
