Lanes refurbishment transforms rail pump house at London Underground station

London Underground awarded Lanes the six-figure contract, by competitive tender, under its planned and reactive civil engineering maintenance programme for bridges and structures.

The eight-week refurbishment project has dramatically changed the look of the pump house, which takes water from the Tube track, six metres below ground-level, up into the surface water drainage system. Work on the building close included cladding the external walls in plastic panels and waterproofing the roof.

Other work carried out as part of the project included installing guard rails on the roof and a roof access cat ladder with a safety fall cage.

Babajide Oriogun from London Underground:  “This pump house is a unique facility. There is nothing else quite like it on the London Underground system. When it was built, visual amenity was clearly not a priority. The work done by Lanes has protected and upgraded the building, and has improved its looks greatly, which is what we set out to achieve.”

Lanes Rail Division Project Manager Steve Demwell: “The building was looking very tired and drab. With its new blue and white cladding it is now looking neat and bright. A full free-standing scaffold had to be constructed 300mm from the building, so the cladding team could work on the structure without hindrance. That, in itself, was quite a feat of engineering. The new skin is designed to be easy to clean and the cladding panels are replaceable. So the structure will be sound and will look good for decades to come.”