Portal:London transport/Selected articles/11

Westminster is a London Underground station in the City of Westminster, close to the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey. The station is located beneath Portcullis House at the corner of Bridge Street and Victoria Embankment.

The station was opened as Westminster Bridge in 1868 by the District Railway when the company opened the first section of its line from South Kensington.

As part of the Jubilee Line Extension the station was completely reconstructed to designs by Michael Hopkins & Partners. During the reconstruction, a 39 metres (128 ft) deep void was excavated underneath the old station to house the escalators, lifts and stairs to the deep-level Jubilee line platforms. This made it the deepest ever excavation in central London. One of the most difficult problems the engineers faced was to construct the station around the Circle and District line tracks, which continued in service throughout the construction. The tracks had to be lowered by 300 millimetres (0.98 ft), an operation achieved a few millimetres at a time during the few hours each night that the system was closed. Nothing of the old station remains. (Full article...)