Piccadilly Line

The Piccadilly Line is a line of the London Underground, coloured dark blue on the Tube map. It is a deep-level line running from the north-east to the west of London, albeit with significant surface running sections in its outer parts.

History

The beginnings

The Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (GNPBR) (its original title) was one of several controlled by the Underground Electric Railways Co of London Ltd, whose chief director was Charles Tyson Yerkes, although he himself died before any of his schemes could come to fruition. There had been, in 1902, 26 Bills before Parliament to construct tube railways in London, and it required a Parliamentary Committee to decide on the most worthy of them as far as the Piccadilly tube was concerned.

The scheme eventually agreed involved the amalgamation of two of the planned tube railways: the Great Northern and Strand Railway (GN&SR) and the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway and the change of name to GNPBR; and the taking over of a District Railway scheme for a deep-level tube line between South Kensington and Earl's Court (approved in 1897 but not built). When the GNPBR was formally opened on 15 December 1906, the line ran from Finsbury Park to Hammersmith.

On 30 November 1907 the short branch from Holborn to the Strand was opened. This had originally been the last section of the GN&PBR before the link to the GNPBR was made; in 1905 (and again in 1965) plans were made to extend it to Waterloo, but this was never to come about. Although double track, single-line shuttle working became the norm from 1918, and the eastern tunnel closed to traffic.

Equipment and rolling stock

The electrical equipment was on the same general principle as that already adopted for the District Railway: third and fourth rail; the electrical engineer was another American, James Russell Chapman, Engineer-in-Chief and General Manager of the Underground Electric company. Passenger station buildings were all of uniform elevation design: the buildings were clothed in ruby-red glazed bricks (still to be seen on many of the original buildings). Lifts were supplied by the Otis Elevator Company of New York. The first railway escalator came into use on 4 October 1911 between the Piccadilly and District Lines. Specially-designed passenger rolling stock was required; whereas the usual parlance in Britain is to refer to them as "carriages", they have always, because of the original American influence, been termed "cars".

Later changes

On 1 July 1910 the GNPBR became part of the London Electric Railway. The Act approving the change also applied to the Baker Street and Waterloo and Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railways.

On 10 December 1928 a new Piccadilly Circus tube station, which included a sub-surface booking hall and eleven escalators was opened. This was the start of a considerable development over the whole of the Railway, which included a comprehensive programme of station enlargement on the same design as at Piccadilly. The early 1930s was a time of recession, and in order to relieve unemployment Government capital was available. The chief features of the scheme were:

extension northwards from Finsbury Park to Cockfosters.There was some opposition from the London and North Eastern Railway to the line. The line is in tube from Finsbury Park to a point a little south of Arnos Grove. The total length of the extension is 7.7 miles (12km): it cost Ł4 million to build and was opened in sections as follows:

* 19 September 1932: to Arnos Grove

* 13 March 1933: to Enfield West (now Oakwood)

* 19 July 1933: completion to Cockfosters

extensions westwards: there were two involved:

* to Uxbridge: the London and South Western Railway had, until 1916, run trains on its own tracks to Kensington; those tracks were now little used. The Southern Railway granted the lease to the District Railway, and two of the four tracks were designed in 1930 to serve the Piccadilly Line.

** 4 July 1932: Piccadilly line service extended to South Harrow, using MetR tracks

** 23 October 1933 (after formation of the [[London Passenger Transport Board) to Uxbridge

* to Hounslow: the District tracks from Acton Town were quadrupled to Northfields on 18 December 1932 and:

** 9 January 1933: Piccadilly line trains to Northfields

** 13 March 1933: to Hounslow West
These extensions are notable for the Art Deco architecture of their stations, many designed by Charles Holden.

In 1977, the branch to Hounslow West was extended to Heathrow Central. This station was renamed Heathrow Terminals 1,2,3 in 1984, with the opening of a further extension via Heathrow Terminal 4. On the 7th January 2005 this further extension (via Heathrow Terminal 4) closed again, in preparation for works to extend the Picadilly line to the future Heathrow Terminal 5 station.