Earl's Court tube station

Earl's Court tube station is a London Underground station in Earl's Court. The station is in Zones 1 and 2.

• On the Piccadilly Line it is between Barons Court and Gloucester Road.
• On the District Line it is between West Brompton, Kensington (Olympia) & West Kensington and High Street Kensington & Gloucester Road.

The 'next train' indicators on the District and Circle line platforms of Earl's Court tube station

Metropolitan District Railway

The original station was opened slightly to the east of the current station, as part of the Metropolitan District Railway (the MDR, now the District Line), in 1871. However, it was placed quite close to a junction, resulting in tight curves on the approach to the station. In 1878, to ease the awkwardness of trains passing this curve, the station was moved slightly westward, to its present site, and the curve made more gentle.

As a consequence of the MDR seeking to expand into new areas by gaining running powers over a north south mainline railway just to the west of the station, and also due to the formation of the western edge of the Circle Line (part of the reason for the MDR's creation) just to the station's east, the station has become the major junction of the District Line.

The line split into three branches to the West:

• A branch over the southern section of the mainline railway to Wimbledon via West Brompton;
• A branch over the northern section of the mainline railway as far as Kensington (Olympia);
• And the main route via West Kensington to the west.

The line also split into two branches to the East:

• The western edge of the Circle Line heading north to Edgware Road via High Street Kensington.
• The main section of the District Line eastward under the victoria embankment via Gloucester Road towards Upminster

Since this was a major junction, the station was given four platforms (as two islands), rather than the usual two, leading to a level of confusion as to which platform to attend to achieve a particular destination. Attempts to solve this problem resulted in an unusual, but still surviving, feature at the station - each platform has a board containing a list of all possible final destinations of each train, with an illuminated arrow signifying which the train should be going to.

At the present time, travel through the station, on the district line, has been made simpler by the simple expediency of restricting possible routes to the following three alternatives (and their reverse)

• routes via Gloucester Road to West Kensington
• routes via Kensington Olympia to High Street Kensington
• routes via West Brompton to High Street Kensington

However, trains still pause at the station, for a significant period of time, in order that people who suddenly find they need to change trains are able to do so.

The station's original surface level exit at the east was later supplemented with an exit at the western end, connected both to an overbridge, and to a gallery on the northern side facing the platforms. With the introduction of a legal requirement in British Law, to provide access for the Mobility Impaired where possible, the gallery was connected to a new, curving, overbridge with lifts down to the platforms. When the Earl's Court Exhibition Centre opened to the west of the station, an additional third exit was constructed and a lengthy passage made between it and the overbridge at the western end of the platforms.

Piccadilly, Brompton, and Hammersmith Railway

A station also opened here on the Piccadilly Line as one of the stations on the line's original route. Unusually, the station building was, and remains, within the trainshed of the Metropolitan District Railway's station.

Since the line ran directly under the Metropolitan District Railway platforms, the Piccadilly line platforms could afford to be widely spaced out, providing the ability for lifts to travel straight to the platform, in the intervening space, from the ticket office (at ground level). Unusual on the Underground, this still surviving feature has meant that the station could be considered fully accessible, for the Mobility Impaired, once lift access to the MDR platforms from ground level was provided.

This station was also the first on the Underground to utilise the benefits of escalators. After creating a passageway under the northern MDR platforms (to provide an alternative method of passing to the southern MDR platforms, involving shorter flights of steps), an escalator was driven to connect to the circulating area by the lifts at the Piccadilly platforms.

However, people were skeptical, at first, therefore the company decided to employ a man with a wooden leg, known as Bumper Harris (Ed - what was his other leg called?), to ride up and down the escalator continuously, for the first week. Evidently, the demonstration sufficiently persuaded passengers of its safety, as escalators are now the predominant method of reaching Underground platforms, when contrasted with the original system of lifts.

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