Every year 80 million people file in and out of Heathrow Airport on their way around the world. While many take the Tube or train to get there, very few will be aware of a secret station that’s been built beneath their feet. When Terminal 5 was planned, the airport decided to include the structure of a empty station in case it needed to be used in future. BTP Joe visited and filmed at the site for his work, ITV News London.
‘To the Secret Station’ – From Heathrow.com
Beneath the frenetic activity of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, there is a giant, unused railway station that remains entirely empty – eight years after it was built. In an area the length of 33 London buses, the spaces yet to be filled with tracks or signals are demarcated by immense concrete platforms – platforms on which you could find yourself waiting for a train in 2030. Heathrow’s head of surface Chris Joyce describes the secret transport cavern as “like a cathedral; it’s a massive open space. The scale of it is difficult to explain unless you’re there.” There is a stark, brutalist glory to the ghost station; magnificent concrete pillars tower over you, dividing up the vast space into a futuristic symphony of right angles that repeat geometrically into the apparently infinite distance.
