The Metropolitan line is part of the London Underground, coloured Magenta on the Tube map. It was the first underground railway (or subway) in the world, opening on 10 January 1863 (however, parts of that initial section are no longer served by the Metropolitan line, but by the Hammersmith & City, District and Circle lines). The main line runs from Aldgate in the City of London to Amersham, with branch lines to Uxbridge, Watford and Chesham. For the initial section of the line the rails are in tunnel for much of the way; beyond Baker Street, at Finchley Road the line runs in the open. Out of the 34 stations served, only 9 are underground. It is now the least used line on the Underground for its length of track; ironically it is the oldest line and initially covered the bulk of the Underground system. Today it is the ninth busiest line on the network.

The four-track layout for part of the distance — between Wembley Park and Moor Park — allows for the running of express or "fast" services to the outer suburbs. Baker Street is the terminus for some trains, with others continuing into the City to Aldgate.

It is the fastest line on the London Underground network - Before the late 1990s/early 2000s, the fast line north of Harrow-on-the-Hill was . However, the Metropolitan stock has now been limited to but the stock is still the fastest. Line speeds have dropped accordingly with the majority of the line north of Finchley Road limited to , and where National rail services run on the line it is .

History

The origins of the Metropolitan line lie with the incorporation, in 1853, of the North Metropolitan Railway, the original name of the Metropolitan Railway, which railway had been empowered, with the Metropolitan District Railway to complete an Inner Circle of railways in London. The first section was opened from near Paddington to Farringdon Street (now Farringdon station) in January 1863; work on the railway had begun in February 1860 using the "cut-and-cover" method of construction. This caused massive traffic disruption in north London: during the work the Fleet Sewer bursting into the diggings, flooding the partly-built tunnel.

Between its opening and the 1930s the railway was expanded until its total mileage exceeded 90, most of it progressively electrified from 1905. In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was taken over by the London Passenger Transport Board, becoming the Metropolitan line of the London Underground. The line was successively rationalised during this period. The section north-west of Aylesbury was closed in 1936 (though services did get to Quainton Road again between 1943 and 1948). In the same year a service extension from Whitechapel to Barking was implemented along the District line tracks. In 1939 the Stanmore extension was taken over by the Bakerloo line (it now forms the original core of the Jubilee line). In 1948 it was nationalised, along with the rest of the Underground.

Steam-hauled passenger trains ran north of Rickmansworth until 1961 and maintenance trains until 1972. A major modernisation of the that arm of the network line took place by 1960. The service was totally electrified to Amersham and Chesham, while the service beyond Amersham was withdrawn in September 1961, along with the steam passenger service. The line north of Harrow was quadrupled to Northwood Hills by 1961 and Croxleyhall Junction (north of Moor Park) by 1962. Prior to that local and semi-fast services from Aylesbury to Harrow had shared the double-track with main line expresses of the former Great Central route.

Another major change took place in 1988, when the Hammersmith & City line and East London line — which already had well-defined individual identities — were split off from the Metropolitan line to be run separately. The Metropolitan line is now confined to its northern extension from Baker Street, through the area that came to be known as "Metro-land", plus its original track to Aldgate, running through the tunnels opened by the Metropolitan Railway back in 1868. The East London line shared stock with the Metropolitan line until its closure in 2007 for conversion to London Overground. While there is no passenger interchange between the two lines, there is a physical connection (via Aldgate East), although this is expected to be redundant once the ELL re-opens, as it will have its own stock.

In 1998, the Metropolitan line was partly privatised in a controversial Public-Private Partnership. It is now part of the "Sub-Surface Railways" group, managed along with the Circle, Hammersmith & City and District lines by the Metronet consortium.

The Metropolitan line's influence on underground railways world-wide has been immense. The Paris Métro took its name, in full Chemin de fer métropolitain, from the Metropolitan line. This is the origin of the term metro.

Trains

The current rolling stock in use on the Metropolitan line is the sub-surface gauge A Stock built by Cravens in Sheffield, which were shared with the East London line until 2007. While it ran in service with unpainted aluminium bodywork for many years, since refurbishment the stock has received the now standard white and blue Underground livery, with red ends. Metropolitan line services are usually formed of two four-car units coupled together for a total of eight cars, although the Chesham shuttle service is served by four-car trains, as was the East London Line.

The A Stock trains were built in the early 1960s and are now the oldest trains operating on the London Underground. They replaced a wide variety of older rolling stock, including trains with hinged doors and compartments (T Stock electric multiple units for Watford services and locomotive-hauled carriages for Aylesbury services), as well as London Underground P stock (built in 1937) and F Stock (built in 1920) used on Uxbridge services. The A Stock trains are due to be replaced by the new S Stock.

Map

The TFL line diagram is available online.

Stations

In order from east to west

Shared Circle and Hammersmith and City lines

• Terminus: Aldgate
• Liverpool Street
• Moorgate (Trains from the north/west can terminate at Moorgate, but none regularly do in the current timetable)
• Barbican
• Farringdon
• King's Cross St. Pancras
• Euston Square
• Great Portland Street

Core section

The Metropolitan line diverges from the Circle/Hammersmith & City lines just east of Baker Street station, where they use separate platforms, at a roughly 45 degree angle to the Circle/Hammersmith & City platforms.

• Baker Street (most trains start their northbound journey here)
• Finchley Road
• Between Finchley Road and Wembley Park the line runs on the outside of the Jubilee line. Two Jubilee line stations - Willesden Green and Neasden - have platforms on the Metropolitan line, but Met trains only stop here during emergencies, or when there are Major operating Issues with the 2 Lines
• Wembley Park
• Preston Road
• Northwick Park
• Harrow-on-the-Hill

At Wembley Park, the Metropolitan lines split from two tracks to four, with the faster lines on the outside. Fast services (typically to Amersham) and semi-fast services (typically to Watford) do not stop at Preston Road or Northwick Park. During the peaks, they also skip Wembley Park.

At Harrow, the line splits into two branches — the main line to Watford, Amersham and the Uxbridge branch.

Uxbridge branch

(continuing from Harrow on the Hill)

• West Harrow
• Rayners Lane (from Rayners Lane to Uxbridge the line is shared with the Piccadilly line)
• Eastcote
• Ruislip Manor
• Ruislip
• Ickenham
• Hillingdon
• Terminus: Uxbridge

Northwood branch

(continuing from Harrow on the Hill)

• North Harrow
• Pinner
• Northwood Hills
• Northwood (the last station within Greater London)
• Moor Park

After Harrow-on-the-Hill the lines are re-arranged into two parallel pairs, the slow (the northerly pair) and the fast. The fast lines are also shared with the National Rail line to Aylesbury (operated by Chiltern Railways) which had hitherto run parallel. The stations between Harrow-on-the-Hill and Moor Park (exclusive) only have platforms on the slow lines, and can only be stopped at by slow and semi-fast services, which usually run to Watford. At Moor Park the line splits, with the fast line forming the main line towards Amersham and the slow line heading off towards Watford.

Watford branch

(continuing from Moor Park - a triangular connection also exists, allowing trains to run between Watford and Rickmansworth, and there are a few early-morning/late-evening services that do this).

• Croxley
• Watford

Towards Amersham

(continuing from Moor Park)

Stations between Rickmansworth and Amersham are also served by most Chiltern services to Aylesbury.

• Rickmansworth
• Chorleywood
• Chalfont & Latimer

Here trains either continue to Amersham or, during peak hours, go straight through on a separate branch to Chesham. At all other times there is a shuttle between Chalfont & Latimer and Chesham, which involves a change from Amersham trains. The service frequency between Chalfont & Latimer and Chesham is roughly every 30 minutes.

• Chesham

or

• Amersham

Former Stations

St John's Wood section

• Lord's (closed 1939)
• Marlborough Road (closed 1939)
• Swiss Cottage (closed 1940)

Beyond Amersham

• Great Missenden (service withdrawn 1961)
• Wendover (service withdrawn 1961)
• Stoke Mandeville (service withdrawn 1961)
• Ayelsbury (service withdrawn 1961)
• Waddesdon Manor (closed 1936)
• Quainton Road railway station (service withdrawn 1948, closed 1966)

Verney Junction Branch

• Granborough Road (closed 1936)
• Winslow Road (closed 1936)
• Verney Junction (service withdrawn 1936, closed 1967)

Brill Tramway

Current service pattern

The Metropolitan line, unlike other London Underground lines, operates express services (the Piccadilly line runs a fast service between Hammersmith and Turnham Green/Acton Town, but the intermediate stations are served by the District line, and so all Piccadilly line trains stop at all regular Piccadilly line stations on their route, in the same way as the Metropolitan by-passes Jubilee line stations between Finchley Road and Wembley Park). Fast services, usually to Amersham, call at Baker Street, Finchley Road, Wembley Park, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Moor Park and then all stations. There are also semi-fast services, usually in the peak, which use the fast stopping pattern as far as Harrow-on-the-Hill, but then run all stations, usually to Watford.

The current off-peak service pattern is as follows:

• 6tph Uxbridge — Aldgate (all stations)
• 6tph Watford — Baker Street (all stations)
• 4tph Amersham — Baker Street (Fast). This section is also served by 2tph Chiltern Railways trains between Marylebone and Aylesbury, providing a 6tph service between Amersham and London.
• 2tph Chesham — Chalfont & Latimer

(tph=trains per hour)

London Underground have proposed reducing the service to Amersham from 4tph to 2tph, while Chesham will be served by 2tph to London.

During peak hours the services vary much more. Trains can run through from Aldgate to any destination, and each terminus gets a mixture of fast and semi-fast – which generally don't stop at Wembley Park – and all stations services. Through trains also run between Chesham and London. There are also a few early-morning/late-evening trains from Rickmansworth to Watford.

This is the only line not to have any interchange with the District Line since much of the Metropolitan Line has been taken over by the Circle and Hammersmith and City lines.

Future plans

Croxley Rail Link

Transport for London and Hertfordshire County Council are developing plans to divert the line from the current Watford station and re-route it over the disused Croxley Green branch line to Watford Junction.

It was envisaged in 2005 that the link would be operational by 2010, but difficulties in securing funding caused the project to be postponed.

The current Watford station is located in a housing estate by Cassiobury Park, rather than serving the centre of Watford. Should the project go ahead, the station would close. A new station would be provided at Ascot Road and Watford West would be refurbished and reopened.

Reorganisation

As part of a wider overhaul of the Sub-Surface Lines, there are also plans to run through Metropolitan line trains from Uxbridge to Barking. This would be to replace Hammersmith & City line services which would be curtailed or withdrawn as part of the Circle line re-organisation. However, this would only be possible after the delivery of new rolling stock, which is due to arrive from 2009, as there are a number of gauge infringements which mean that the Metropolitan line's A stock trains are banned east of Aldgate.

Amersham and Chesham

In May 2008 a TfL review of the Metropolitan Line saw a proposal to change the train times for Amersham station and Chesham tube station. The peak hour trains 0700 to 0800 and 1800 to 1900 would not be affected.

Chesham

Currently only two trains each peak period run direct between Baker Street and Chesham The recast of services would see this increase to two trains per hour all day. This is because passenger numbers to Chesham have been rising since 2006, and Amersham is served by Chiltern Railways anyway.

Amersham

Because of the extra trains going to Chesham there would only be 2 trains per hour to go to Amersham instead of the 4 trains per hour now. The Chiltern Railways services having 2 trains an hour (except on Sunday when they only run 1 train an hour) would not be affected.

Lords

North of Baker Street there is a noticeably long gap until the next station at Finchley Road. This section once had three stops on it, all of which closed when a nearby stretch, now part of the Jubilee Line, was opened in 1939. There have been recent proposals to re-open or construct a new Metropolitan station on this section, tied in with the main Line out of Marylebone which has a similarly long gap. A new station could provide a valuable interchange between the two, as well as serving the surrounding district, possibly in the vicinity of Lord's cricket ground which was once served by its own Lord's tube station which closed in 1939. This is unlikely to happen in the near future, despite recently announced redevelopment of the ground.

References

External links

• Metropolitan line facts. Transport for London. Retrieved on 2008-07-11..
• Metropolitan Line. Clive's Underground Line Guide. Retrieved on 2008-07-11..
• Railways Around Amersham & The Metropolitan Line. Metro-land. Retrieved on 2008-07-11..
• Amersham and Chesham. Metro-land. Retrieved on 2008-07-30..