The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England.
The Bakerloo line is a London Underground line that runs from Harrow & Wealdstone in suburban north-west London to Elephant & Castle in south London, via the West End. Printed in brown on the Tube map, it serves 25 stations, 15 of which are underground, over 23.2 kilometres (14.4 mi). It runs partly on the surface and partly through deep-level tube tunnels.
The London Underground 1973 Stock is a type of rolling stock used on the Piccadilly line of the London Underground. It was introduced into service in 1975 with the extension of the line to Hatton Cross, followed by a further extension to Heathrow Central in 1977. A total of 86 six-car trains were built.
London Underground rolling stock includes the electric multiple-unit trains used on the London Underground. These come in two sizes, smaller deep-level tube trains and larger sub-surface trains of a similar size to those on British main lines, both running on standard gauge tracks. New trains are designed for the maximum number of standing passengers and for speed of access to the cars.
The London Underground 1938 Stock was a London Underground tube stock design. A total of 1,121 cars were built by Metro-Cammell and Birmingham RC&W. An additional 173 cars were added to the fleet by the end of 1953, comprising 91 new builds, 76 conversions from Pre-1938 Tube Stock or 1935 Tube Stock, and six unconverted cars of 1935 Tube Stock, and the stock was used on the London Underground until 1988. During their long lives they worked on the Bakerloo, Northern, Piccadilly, East London and Central lines. Ten sets were refurbished and ran on the Isle of Wight as Class 483, making them the oldest passenger rolling stock operating timetabled services on the National Rail network at the time of their withdrawal in January 2021. The trains represented a major technical advance, as all the electrical equipment was located under the floor for the first time. All previous tube stock had large equipment compartments behind the driving cabs in motor cars, which reduced the space available for passengers by about a third.
The Standard Stock title was applied to a variety of Tube stock built between 1923 and 1934, all of which shared the same basic characteristics, but with some detailed differences. This design is sometimes referred to as 1923 Tube Stock, 1923 Stock, or Pre 1938 Stock. Most of the Standard Stock was built to replace the first generation of "Gate Stock" Tube trains or to provide additional trains for extensions built in the 1920s and early 1930s. Standard Stock cars consisted of motor cars, with a driver's cab, behind which was a "switch compartment" occupying approximately one-third of the length of the car, plus trailer cars and "control trailers", with a driving cab but no motor. All were equipped with air operated sliding doors. The guard's door on the earlier trains was a manually operated, inward-opening hinged door.
The history of the London Underground began in the 19th century with the construction of the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground railway. The Metropolitan Railway, which opened in 1863 using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives, worked with the District Railway to complete London's Circle line in 1884. Both railways expanded, the Metropolitan eventually extending as far as Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire, more than 50 miles (80 km) from Baker Street and the centre of London. The first deep-level tube line, the City and South London Railway, opened in 1890 with electric trains. This was followed by the Waterloo & City Railway in 1898, the Central London Railway in 1900, and the Great Northern and City Railway in 1904. The Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) was established in 1902 to fund the electrification of the District Railway and to complete and operate three tube lines, the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway and the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway, which opened in 1906–07. By 1907 the District and Metropolitan Railways had electrified the underground sections of their lines.
The T Stock was a series of electric trains originally built in various batches by Metropolitan-Vickers and the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company for the Metropolitan Railway in 1927–31 for use on electric services from Baker Street and the City to Watford and Rickmansworth, though rarely some worked on the Uxbridge branch.
The London Underground A60 and A62 Stock, commonly referred to as A Stock, was a type of sub-surface rolling stock which operated on the Metropolitan line of the London Underground from 12 June 1961 to 26 September 2012, and on the East London line from 1977 until 22 December 2007, when it closed to be converted into London Overground.
The London Underground 1972 Stock is a type of rolling stock used on the London Underground. The 1972 Stock was originally ordered to make up the shortfall in trains on the Northern line's 1959 Tube Stock fleet, but is currently used on the Bakerloo line. Following the withdrawal of the British Rail Class 483 EMUs in 2021, the 1972 Stock are now the oldest EMUs in passenger service in the United Kingdom. A total of 63 seven-car trains were built in two separate batches.
Elstree South was a proposed London Underground station in Elstree, Hertfordshire. It was designed by Charles Holden. The planned location of the station was adjacent to the A5183, north of the junction with the A41 and where junction 4 of the M1 motorway was subsequently built.
The railway infrastructure of the London Underground includes 11 lines, with 272 stations. There are two types of line on the London Underground: services that run on the sub-surface network just below the surface using larger trains, and the deep-level tube lines, that are mostly self-contained and use smaller trains. Most of the lines emerge on the surface outside the Central London area.
The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (GNP&BR), also known as the Piccadilly tube, was a railway company established in 1902 that constructed a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London, England. The GNP&BR was formed through a merger of two older companies, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway (B&PCR) and the Great Northern and Strand Railway (GN&SR). It also incorporated part of a tube route planned by a third company, the District Railway (DR). The combined company was a subsidiary of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL).
The Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (BS&WR), also known as the Bakerloo tube, was a railway company established in 1893 that built a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London. The company struggled to fund the work, and construction did not begin until 1898. In 1900, work was hit by the financial collapse of its parent company, the London & Globe Finance Corporation, through the fraud of Whitaker Wright, its main shareholder. In 1902, the BS&WR became a subsidiary of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) controlled by American financier Charles Yerkes. The UERL quickly raised the funds, mainly from foreign investors.
The transport system now known as the London Underground began in 1863 with the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground railway. Over the next forty years, the early sub-surface lines reached out from the urban centre of the capital into the surrounding rural margins, leading to the development of new commuter suburbs. At the turn of the nineteenth century, new technology—including electric locomotives and improvements to the tunnelling shield—enabled new companies to construct a series of "tube" lines deeper underground. Initially rivals, the tube railway companies began to co-operate in advertising and through shared branding, eventually consolidating under the single ownership of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL), with lines stretching across London.
The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited (UERL), known operationally as the Underground for much of its existence, was established in 1902. It was the holding company for the three deep-level "tube" underground railway lines opened in London during 1906 and 1907: the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway and the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway. It was also the parent company from 1902 of the District Railway, which it electrified between 1903 and 1905. The UERL is a precursor of today's London Underground; its three tube lines form the central sections of today's Bakerloo, Northern and Piccadilly lines.
London's Metropolitan Railway (MR) amalgamated with other underground railways, tramway companies and bus operators on 1 July 1933, to form the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB); the MR became the Board's Metropolitan line.
Departmental locomotives on the London Underground consist of vehicles of a number of types which are used for engineering purposes. These include battery locomotives, diesel locomotives, electric locomotives, sleet locomotives, pilot motor cars and ballast motor cars. Details of the first four types are covered elsewhere. Pilot motor cars and ballast motor cars are generally vehicles which have been withdrawn from passenger service, but continue to be used by the engineering department. Pilot motor cars are used to move other vehicles around the system, while ballast motor cars are used to haul ballast trains and engineering trains.
Although the railway network in Great Britain has some of the smallest loading gauges in the world, the vast bulk of it is still capable of operating full sized vehicles. However, British Rail, together with its predecessors and successors have, on occasion, been required to operate passenger trains to an even smaller loading gauge and have, as a consequence, obtained rolling stock identical to that of the "deep tube" lines of London Underground; these are lines built using the tunneling shield method, that were, by necessity, smaller than those lines built using the cut-and-cover method. In 1892, a Parliamentary Committee headed by James Stansfeld recommended that such lines be in tunnels with a minimum diameter of 11 ft 6in. Two routes operated by British Rail required the use of such deep-tube rolling stock, the Waterloo & City Line in London, and the Island Line on the Isle of Wight.
Morden Depot is a British rolling stock depot on the London Underground Northern line, and is located to the south of Morden Underground station. It was opened in 1926, when the City and South London Railway (C&SLR) was extended from Clapham Common to Morden.
