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 Metropolitan line, colloquially known as the Met, is a London Underground line between Aldgate in the City of London and Amersham and Chesham in Buckinghamshire, with branches to Watford in Hertfordshire and Uxbridge in Hillingdon. Printed in magenta on the tube map, the line is 41.4 miles (66.7 km) in length and serves 34 stations. Between Aldgate and Finchley Road, the track is mostly in shallow "cut and cover" tunnels, apart from short sections at Barbican and Farringdon stations. The rest of the line is above ground, with a loading gauge of a similar size to those on main lines. Just under 94 million passenger journeys were made on the line in 2019.
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.
Charing Cross is a London Underground station at Charing Cross in the City of Westminster. The station is served by the Bakerloo and Northern lines and provides an interchange with Charing Cross mainline station. On the Bakerloo line, it is between Piccadilly Circus and Embankment stations and on the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line, it is between Leicester Square and Embankment stations. The station is in fare zone 1.
Baker Street is a London Underground station at the junction of Baker Street and the Marylebone Road in the City of Westminster. It is one of the original stations of the Metropolitan Railway (MR), the world's first underground railway, opened on 10 January 1863.
Oxford Circus is a London Underground station serving Oxford Circus at the junction of Regent Street and Oxford Street, with entrances on all four corners of the intersection. The station is an interchange between three lines: Bakerloo, Central and Victoria. As of 2022, it was the fourth-busiest station on the London Underground. On the Bakerloo line it is between Regent's Park and Piccadilly Circus stations, on the Central line it is between Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road stations, and on the Victoria line it is between Green Park and Warren Street stations. The station is in Travelcard Zone 1.
Wembley Park is a London Underground station in Wembley Park, north west London. The station is served by the Jubilee and Metropolitan lines and is in Travelcard Zone 4. It is located on Bridge Road (A4089) and is the nearest Underground station to the Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena complex. This is where the Jubilee line from Stanmore diverges from the Metropolitan line, which was formerly a branch of the Metropolitan Railway and was taken over by the Bakerloo line and today part of the Jubilee line.
Kilburn is a London Underground station near Brondesbury Park in north-west London. It is on the Jubilee line, between Willesden Green and West Hampstead stations and is in Travelcard Zone 2. The station is on the A5 Kilburn High Road or Shoot-up Hill, approximately 0.1 miles (0.16 km) north of Brondesbury station. Metropolitan line trains typically bypass the station without stopping.
Metro-Cammell, formally the Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company (MCCW), was an English manufacturer of railway carriages, locomotives and railway wagons, based in Saltley, and subsequently Washwood Heath, in Birmingham. The company was purchased by GEC Alsthom in May 1989; the Washwood Heath factory closed in 2005 and was demolished in early 2019.
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 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 during 1906–1907. By 1907, the District and Metropolitan Railways had electrified the underground sections of their lines.
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.
Rolling stock used on the London Underground and its constituent companies has been classified using a number of schemes. This page explains the principal systems for the rolling stock of the Central London Railway (CLR), the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL), the District Railway (DR) and the Metropolitan Railway (MR). For information about individual classes of locomotives and other rolling stock, see London Underground rolling stock.
Sid Rainey is an Irish musician and television producer known for Underground Ernie and his work as a musician and comedy writer.
Joella Productions is a television production company based in London's Twickenham that produced the children's television series Underground Ernie for the BBC with the help of 3D films limited. It was founded by John Deery and Sid Rainey and named after Deery's son, Joe, and Rainey's daughter, Ella. It was founded in 2002 and went out of business in 2011.
Rob Curling is a British television presenter and journalist. He presents the sport for Sky News. He also fronts the tennis coverage for British Eurosport. Up to and including 2011, he anchored BBC Sport's interactive television coverage of: Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, Wimbledon, Open Golf, Six Nations Rugby and World Athletics Championships. He was the host of the game show Turnabout, which aired on BBC One for eight series between 1990 and 1996. He presented the Halford Tour Series cycling for ITV4, and commentated on table tennis on the BBC at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
John Deery is a British-Irish award-winning film and television drama director, screenwriter and producer.
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 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.
