Hammersmith & City line

Hammersmith & City Line
Hammersmith ( Hammersmith) Hammersmith depot Goldhawk Road Shepherd's Bush Market White City Wood Lane ( White City) West London Line Services to Kensington (Olympia) withdrawn 1940 Latimer Road Ladbroke Grove Great Western main line to Bristol Westbourne Park Crossrail (under construction) Royal Oak Paddington Circle and District lines via Tower Hill Edgware Road Metropolitan line to Harrow Baker Street Great Portland Street Euston Square ( Euston) Thameslink King's Cross St. Pancras Clerkenwell Farringdon Thameslink Barbican Moorgate Liverpool Street Circle line via Tower Hill Aldgate District line via Tower Hill Aldgate East St. Mary's (Whitechapel Road) St Mary's Curve (services withdrawn 1939, removed 2007) Whitechapel East London line Crossrail (under construction) Stepney Green Central line via Bank Mile End Central line via Stratford LTS Railway to Fenchurch Street Bow Road ( Bow Church) Bromley-by-Bow West Ham Plaistow Upton Park East Ham Gospel Oak to Barking line Barking LTS Railway and District line to Upminster and Shoeburyness

The first line built by the Metropolitan Railway (Met) was from Paddington to near Smithfield, near London's financial heart in the City; with gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives. Opened on 10 January 1863, it was the world's first underground railway. The line was built mostly under the New Road using the "cut-and-cover" method between Paddington and King's Cross and then in tunnel and cuttings beside Farringdon Road.[5][6] Supported by the Met and the Great Western Railway (GWR), the Hammersmith & City Railway (H&CR) was built from the GWR's main line a mile west of Paddington station to the developing suburbs of Shepherd's Bush and Hammersmith.[7][8] Built on viaduct largely across open fields,[9] the line opened on 13 June 1864 with a GWR service from Farringdon[10] to Hammersmith,[11] services to Addison Road (now Kensington (Olympia)) on the West London Railway via a link at Latimer Road starting a few weeks later.[10] From 1865 the Met ran trains to Hammersmith and the GWR trains to Addison Road.[lower-alpha 2] In 1867 the line became jointly owned by the two companies. In 1871 two additional tracks parallel to the GWR between Westbourne Park and Paddington were brought into use for the H&CR, and in 1878 the flat crossing at Westbourne Park was replaced by a dive-under.[9] A year earlier some services had been extended via London & South Western Railway's Hammersmith (Grove Road) railway station and their line to Richmond.[13][11]

The railway was extended east of Farringdon and a terminus opened at Aldgate on 18 November 1876.[14] The Met wished to access the South Eastern Railway via the East London Railway (ELR) and jointly with the District Railway built lines from their Mansion House station to the Met's Aldgate station and east from Aldgate to reach the ELR at Whitechapel. In October 1884 the Met extended some Hammersmith services over the ELR to New Cross.[15][11]

In 1902 the Whitechapel & Bow Railway was opened, linking the District Railway at Whitechapel to the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR) at an above-ground junction at Bow, to the west of Bromley-by-Bow station, and some District services were extended from Whitechapel to East Ham.[16] When the line was electrified in 1906 services to Richmond were withdrawn and the western termini became Hammersmith and Kensington (Addison Road), and to the east services were diverted from the ELR to Whitechapel,[17] until the ELR was electrified in 1914 and services ran from Hammersmith to New Cross (SER) and New Cross (LB&SCR).[18] The 6-car electric multiple units were jointly owned by the Met and GWR until 1923 when the GWR sold theirs to the Met.[19]

On 1 July 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was amalgamated with other Underground railways, tramway companies and bus operators to form the London Passenger Transport Board. To relieve congestion on the District line east of Whitechapel from 1936 some Hammersmith & City line trains were diverted from the East London line to Barking.[11] Through trains to New Cross and New Cross Gate were withdrawn in November 1939,[11] the Hammersmith & City line trains terminating at Whitechapel while the longer 8-car Uxbridge line trains ran to Barking. However, this caused operational problems and from 1941 Barking was again served by trains from Hammersmith.[20]

From 1937 new steel O stock trains, with doors remotely operated by the guard, replaced the wooden-bodied trains dating from 1906. It had been intended to operate the new trains with four or six cars,[20] but after initial problems with the traction current only six-car formations were used.[21] Services to Kensington (Olympia) via the curve at Latimer Road were suspended for the duration of World War II after bomb damage to the West London line in 1940.[22] When the similar trains running on the Circle line were lengthened to six cars in 1959 and 1960, the stock of the two lines was integrated with maintenance at Hammersmith depot.[23] Aluminium C Stock trains, with public address systems and originally unpainted, replaced these trains from 1970.[24] One person operation was proposed in 1972, but due to conflict with the trade unions was not introduced until 1984.[25]

The Hammersmith & City line was shown on the tube map as part of the Metropolitan line until 1990, when it became separated, and the Metropolitan line became the route from Aldgate to Baker Street and northwards through "Metro-Land" to Uxbridge, Watford and Amersham.[11][26] In 2003, the infrastructure of the Hammersmith & City line was partly privatised in a public–private partnership, managed by the Metronet consortium. Metronet went into administration in 2007 and the local government body Transport for London took over responsibilities.[27] The reconstruction of Whitechapel station for the new Crossrail line required the reversing platforms to be taken out of use and since December 2009 all services have been extended to Plaistow or Barking.[28]

Beginning in 2012, following the complete replacement of the Metropolitan line's A Stock with S8 Stock, the C Stock trains of the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines were replaced by the S7 Stock. The Hammersmith & City line received the S7 Stock first, with the first train entering service on 6 July 2012, running a shuttle service between Hammersmith and Moorgate[29] before operating between Hammersmith and Barking on 9 December 2012.[30][31] By March 2014 all services were provided by S7 Stock trains.[32]

• Bruce, J Graeme (1983). Steam to Silver. A history of London Transport Surface Rolling Stock. Capital Transport. ISBN 0-904711-45-5.
• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199.
• Green, Oliver (1987). The London Underground: An illustrated history. Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-1720-4.
• Horne, Mike (2003). The Metropolitan Line. Capital Transport. ISBN 1-85414-275-5.
• Horne, Mike (2006). The District Line. Capital Transport. ISBN 1-85414-292-5.
• Jackson, Alan (1986). London's Metropolitan Railway. David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-8839-8.
• Leboff, David (1994). London Underground Stations. Ian Allan. ISBN 978-0-7110-2226-3.
• Rose, Douglas (December 2007) [1980]. The London Underground: A Diagrammatic History (8th ed.). Capital Transport. ISBN 978-1-85414-315-0.
• Wolmar, Christian (2004). The Subterranean Railway: how the London Underground was built and how it changed the city forever. Atlantic. ISBN 1-84354-023-1.