Piccadilly Line |
| Hob Uid: 1309759 | |
Location :
Greater London Authority
Kensington and Chelsea, Barnet, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Camden, Brent, Hillingdon, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow, Hackney, City of Westminster, Islington, Ealing
Non Civil Parish
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| Grid Ref : TQ1886285294 |
| Summary : The Piccadilly - formally the Great Northern Piccadilly and Brompton Railway - was the longest of the London tubes when it opened in 1906 from Finsbury Park to Hammersmith, 8.5 miles (7.75 miles under ground). It was a fusion of three separate projects: a deep-level scheme of the Metropolitan District, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus, and the Great Northern and Strand Railways, merged in 1902. The resulting line ran roughly east from Hammersmith through Kensington and the West End to Holborn, where it turned north to King's Cross and Finsbury Park on the Great Northern Railway, with a short branch from Holborn to Aldwych, closed in 1994. The GNPB company was renamed the London Electric Railway in 1910, when it absorbed the Bakerloo and Hampstead railways. The line was constructed and equipped to the same standards as the other Underground tubes. The first railway escalator was brought into use between the District and the Piccadilly platforms at Earl's Court in 1911. The line was extended beyond both terminals in 1932-3; to the west over former District tracks to Houlslow and South Harrow and over the Metropolitan branch to Uxbridge; to the north in new tube, with surface sections, to Southgate and Cockfosters, 7.75 miles. The end-to-end Piccadilly run from Uxbridge to Cockfosters, 32 miles, was then the longest on LT electric tracks. New station buildings, by or inspired by Charles Holden, were a striking feature. The Hounslow branch was projected to Heathrow airport in 1977, giving London the first underground railway connection to its international airport of any capital city in the world, a further loop to serve Terminal 4 was added in 1986. |
More information : The Piccadilly Line is principally the legacy of one of the great pioneers of tube railways, the American entrepreneur, Charles Tyson Yerkes.
Yerkes initially acquired the District in 1901 and then in 1902 formed the Underground Electric Railways Company to fund construction of the Hampstead (now part of the Northern), Baker Street and Waterloo (the Bakerloo) and the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton (Piccadilly) railways, but tragically Yerkes died in 1905 before any of these new tube lines opened.
The original Piccadilly Line, which was opened on 15th December 1906, consisted of 15.3 km (9.5 mile) twin tunnels from Finsbury Park to Barons Court and a short section of surface track on to Hammersmith. A branch to Aldwych opened the following year.
No major developments took place on the Piccadilly Line until the early 1930s when it grew rapidly. The extensions to South Harrow and Arnos Grove were opened in 1932 and those to Hounslow West, Uxbridge and Cockfosters were completed in 1933.
In more recent years, the Piccadilly Line was extended west from Hounslow West to serve Hatton Cross (1975) and Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 (1977).
In 1986, the Heathrow service was developed into a loop, to serve the new Terminal 4.
BAA Heathrow Airport Ltd is seeking to build a new fifth terminal on the west side of Heathrow Airport, and a scheme to extend the Piccadilly Line to serve a station within the new terminal has been drawn up by London Underground in tandem with BAA's plans. (4)
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