London Underground - Piccadilly Line

The Piccadilly line:

... is a line of the London Underground, coloured dark blue on the Tube map. It is the third busiest line on the Underground network judged by the number of passengers transported per year. It is mainly a deep-level line running from the north to the west of London via Zone 1, with a number of surface sections in its westernmost parts. Out of the 53 stations served, 25 are underground.

The first section opened in 1869 and the Line- length is nearly 71 km long.

The beginnings:

The Piccadilly line began as the Great Northern Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (GNP&BR), one of several railways, whose chief director was Charles Tyson Yerkes, although he died before any of his schemes came to fruition.

The GN&PBR was formed from the merger of two earlier, but unbuilt, tube-railway companies taken over in 1901 by Yerkes' consortium: the Great Northern & Strand Railway (GN&SR) and the Brompton & Piccadilly Circus Railway (B&PCR). The GN&SR's and B&PCR's separate routes were linked with a new section of track between Piccadilly Circus and Holborn. A section of the Metropolitan District Railway's scheme for a deep-level tube line between South Kensington and Earl's Cour was also added in order to complete the route.

When the GNP&BR was formally opened on 15 December 1906, the line ran from the Great Northern Railway's station at Finsbury Park to the District Railway's station at Hammersmith.

On 30 November 30 1907, the short branch from Holborn to the Strand (later renamed Aldwych) opened, which had been planned as the last section of the GN&SR before the amalgamation with the B&PCR was made. Although built with twin tunnels, single-line shuttling became the norm from 1918 on, with the eastern tunnel closed to traffic.

Made by Jerovsek Christopher 29.05.2009