Metropolitan line
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The Metropolitan Line is a line of the London Underground.
Overview
In its present-day form, the Metropolitan Line functions much like an overground suburban commuter railway: Baker Street station is its terminus, and as it reaches the outer suburbs of London it progressively branches off into several directions.
The line's operation is quite complex: fast services skip stations and overtake slower services. Some trains, both at peak and off peak hours, run beyond Baker Street, further into London along the tracks of the Circle Line through to Aldgate.
The line has a complex history, and has seen many changes to its layout. It began as part of the low-level network which is now split into the Metropolitan Line, the Hammersmith & City Line and the East London Line. It expanded heavily into the north west suburbs of London and beyond as an overground railway. There are many additional branches and stations on existing branches which have either been abandoned or transferred to other railways and underground lines over the years.
Stations
in order from east to west
Shared Circle Line track and main branch
- Terminus: Aldgate
- Liverpool Street
- Moorgate
- Barbican
- Farringdon
- King's Cross St. Pancras
- Euston Square
- Great Portland Street (after this station no longer shares track with Circle Line)
- Baker Street
- Finchley Road
- Wembley Park
- Preston Road
- Northwick Park
- Harrow on the Hill
The line splits here into two branches - the Uxbridge branch and the Northwood branch
Uxbridge Branch
(continuing from Harrow on the Hill)
Northwood Branch
(continuing from Harrow on the Hill)
The line splits here into two branches -- the branch towards Amersham and the Watford branch
Watford Branch
(continuing from Moor Park)
Towards Amersham
(continuing from Moor Park)
From Chalfont and Latimer station trains can go to Amersham (as the majority do) or to Chesham. Only in peak hours do trains run to Chesham; at all other times a shuttle service runs between Chalfont & Latimer and Chesham.
Current service pattern
The Metropolitan line is the only London Underground line to operate fast services that miss out certain stations. (The Piccadilly Line also runs a fast service between Hammersmith and Turnham Green/Acton Town, but this operates round the clock and trains do not stop at the intermediate stations at any time). The current off-peak service pattern is as follows:
- 6tph Uxbridge - Aldgate (all stations)
- 6tph Watford - Baker Street (all stations)
- 4tph Amersham - Baker Street (all stations to Moor Park, then Harrow-on-the-Hill, Wembley Park and Finchley Road only)
- 2tph Chesham - Chalfont & Latimer
(tph=trains per hour)
In the peak other services can run, including through trains to Aldgate from Watford/Amersham, semi-fasts to Watford/Uxbridge missing out Northwick Park and Preston Road and through trains to Chesham. There are also a few trains from Rickmansworth to Watford very early in the morning and vice versa late at night.
History
The oldest section of the Metropolitan Line opened in 1863, running between Farringdon and Paddington, and is the world's oldest underground railway that is still operational. (The world's first was the now-disused Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in New York.)
The Metropolitan Railway Company began construction in February 1860 on a line from Paddington to King's Cross and thence to Farringdon Road in the City of London. It opened in January 1863 after a somewhat eventful construction process that caused massive traffic disruption in north London and included the Fleet Sewer bursting into the diggings and flooding the partly-built tunnel. The line was an immediate and overwhelming success. It was extended to Hammersmith in 1864 and Moorgate in 1865, with plans being laid for a circular underground railway to encompass all of central London north of the River Thames.
The "Inner Circle" took another 20 years to build. An extension from Paddington to South Kensington was opened in 1868 and from Moorgate to Aldgate in 1876, with an impressive terminal being built at the latter station. To secure funding for the southern part of the Inner Circle, a separate company, the Metropolitan District Railway, was set up to raise the capital. This built the line from South Kensington to Mansion House in 1871 and from Mansion House to Aldgate in 1884. Although it had originally been intended that the Metropolitan District Railway company would amalgamate with its parent, it ended up breaking away and becoming a major rival. Both companies ran trains across the whole of the Inner Circle, with the Metropolitan also running trains from Hammersmith through to New Cross via the Thames Tunnel, as well as to what is now Kensington Olympia station via a now-disused northern spur from Latimer Road.
The MR had ambitions to become a mainline railway, leading it to embark on major expansions to the northwest of London and well into the surrounding countryside. The extension from Baker Street to Harrow came first, in 1880, with subsequent extensions taking the line as far as Aylesbury by 1892. It split into two branches, one joining the Duke of Buckingham's private railway (the Wotton Tramway, run by the MR) to Brill, the other meeting the London and North Western Railway at Verney Junction. The line was extended eastwards to Whitechapel in 1884 and to Uxbridge in 1904.
From 1905 onwards, the line was progressively electrified, although steam-hauled passenger trains ran until 1961 and maintenance trains as late as 1972 (the line still hold annual "steam days" in commemoration). A further northwards extension was built to Stanmore in 1932 and an eastwards extension to Barking was built in 1936.
The Metropolitan Railway was taken over by the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933, becoming the Metropolitan Line of the London Underground. The line was successively rationalised during this period. The section west of Aylesbury was closed in 1936, and in 1939 the Stanmore extension was taken over by the Bakerloo Line (it now forms the original core of the Jubilee Line). In 1948 it was nationalised, along with the rest of the Underground. This led to a major modernisation of the line with total electrification by 1961, but a retreat from its furthest extensions; the line beyond Amersham was closed in September 1961.
Another major change took place in 1988, when the Hammersmith and City Line and East London Line - which already had well-defined individual identities - were split off from the Metropolitan Line to be run separately. The Metropolitan Line is now confined to its northern extension from Baker Street plus its original track to Aldgate, running through the tunnels opened by the Metropolitan Railway back in 1868.
In 1998, the Metropolitan Line was partly privatised in a controversial Public-Private Partnership. It is now part of the "Sub-Surface Railways" group, managed along with the Circle, Hammersmith & City and District lines by the Metronet consortium.
The Metropolitan Line's influence on underground railways worldwide has been immense. The Paris Metro took its name, in full Chemin de fer métropolitain - from the Metropolitan Line. This is the origin of the term metro.