![Baker Street & Waterloo Railway](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Baker_Street_%26_Waterloo_Railway.png)
The Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (BS&WR), also known as the Bakerloo tube, was a railway company established in 1893 that built a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London. The company struggled to fund the work, and construction did not begin until 1898. In 1900, work was hit by the financial collapse of its parent company, the London & Globe Finance Corporation, through the fraud of
Whitaker Wright
James Whitaker Wright (9 February 1846 – 26 January 1904) was a company promoter and swindler, who committed suicide at the Royal Courts of Justice in London immediately following his conviction for fraud.
Early life
The eldest of five child ...
, its main shareholder. In 1902, the BS&WR became a subsidiary of the
Underground Electric Railways Company of London
The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited (UERL), known operationally as the Underground for much of its existence, was established in 1902. It was the holding company for the three deep-level "tube"A "tube" railway is an und ...
(UERL) controlled by American financier
Charles Yerkes
Charles Tyson Yerkes Jr. ( ; June 25, 1837 – December 29, 1905) was an American financier. He played a part in developing mass-transit systems in Chicago and London.
Philadelphia
Yerkes was born into a Quaker family in the Northern Liberties, ...
. The UERL quickly raised the funds, mainly from foreign investors.
When first opened in 1906, the BS&WR's line served nine stations and ran completely underground in a pair of tunnels for between its northern terminus at
Baker Street
Baker Street is a street in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster in London. It is named after builder William Baker, who laid out the street in the 18th century. The street is most famous for its connection to the fictional detec ...
and its southern terminus at
Elephant and Castle
The Elephant and Castle is an area around a major road junction in London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark. The name also informally refers to much of Walworth and Newington, due to the proximity of the London Underground station ...
with a depot on a short spur nearby at London Road.
Extensions between 1907 and 1913 took the northern end of the line to the terminus of the
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
(GWR) at
Paddington
Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Paddi ...
. Between 1915 and 1917, it was further extended to
Queen's Park, where it came to the surface and connected with the
London and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom.
In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lo ...
(LNWR), and to
Watford
Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne.
Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...
; a total distance of .
Within the first year of opening it became apparent to the management and investors that the estimated passenger numbers for the BS&WR and the other UERL lines were over-optimistic. Despite improved integration and cooperation with the other tube railways and the later extensions, the BS&WR struggled financially. In 1933, the BS&WR was taken into
public ownership
State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownershi ...
along with the UERL. Today, the BS&WR's tunnels and stations operate as the
London Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...
's
Bakerloo line
The Bakerloo line () is a London Underground line that goes from in suburban north-west London to in south London, via the West End. Printed in brown on the Tube map, it serves 25 stations, 15 of which are underground, over . It runs partly ...
.
Establishment
Origin, 1891–93
![Baker Street & Waterloo Railway1893](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Baker_Street_%26_Waterloo_Railway1893.png)
The idea of building an underground railway along the approximate route of the BS&WR had been put forward well before it came to fruition at the turn of the century. As early as 1865, a proposal was put forward for a
Waterloo & Whitehall Railway
The Waterloo and Whitehall Railway was a proposed and partly constructed 19th century Rammell pneumatic railway in central London intended to run under the River Thames just upstream from Hungerford Bridge, running from Waterloo station to the ...
, powered by pneumatic propulsion. Carriages would have been sucked or blown a distance of three-quarters of a mile (about 1 km) from
Great Scotland Yard
Great Scotland Yard is a street in the St. James's district of Westminster, London, connecting Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall. By the 16th century, this 'yard', which was then an open space for the Palace of Whitehall, was fronted by buil ...
to Waterloo Station, travelling through wrought-iron tubes laid in a trench at the bottom of the Thames. The scheme was abandoned three years later after a financial panic caused its collapse. Sir
William Siemens
Sir Carl Wilhelm Siemens (4 April 1823 – 19 November 1883), anglicised to Charles William Siemens, was a German-British electrical engineer and businessman.
Biography
Siemens was born in the village of Lenthe, today part of Gehrden, near Han ...
of
Siemens Brothers
Siemens Brothers and Company Limited was an electrical engineering design and manufacturing business in London, England. It was first established as a branchThe company started with a small factory at 12 Millbank Row, Westminster SW1, London, nea ...
served as electrical engineer for a later abortive scheme, the
Charing Cross & Waterloo Electric Railway. It was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1882 and got as far as constructing a stretch of tunnel under the
Victoria Embankment
Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment, a road and river-walk along the north bank of the River Thames in London. It runs from the Palace of Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge in the City of London, and acts as a major thoroughfare ...
before running out of money.
According to a pamphlet published by the BS&WR in 1906, the idea of constructing the line "originally arose from the desire of a few business men in
Westminster
Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster.
The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...
to get to and from
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...
as quickly as possible," to enable them to see the last hour's play without having to leave their offices too early. They realised that an underground railway line connecting the north and south of central London would provide "a long-felt want of transport facilities" and "would therefore prove a great financial success." They were inspired by the recent success of the
City and South London Railway
The City and South London Railway (C&SLR) was the first successful deep-level underground "tube" railway in the world, and the first major railway to use electric traction. The railway was originally intended for cable-hauled trains, but owing ...
(C&SLR), the world's first deep-tube railway, which proved the feasibility of such an endeavour. This opened in November 1890 and carried large numbers of passengers in its first year of operation.
In November 1891, notice was given of a
private bill
Proposed bills are often categorized into public bills and private bills. A public bill is a proposed law which would apply to everyone within its jurisdiction. This is unlike a private bill which is a proposal for a law affecting only a single p ...
that would be presented to
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
for the construction of the BS&WR.
The railway was planned to run entirely underground from the junction of New Street (now Melcombe Street) and Dorset Square west of Baker Street to James Street (now Spur Road) on the south side of
Waterloo station
Waterloo station (), also known as London Waterloo, is a central London terminus on the National Rail network in the United Kingdom, in the Waterloo area of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is connected to a London Underground station of t ...
. From Baker Street, the route was to run eastwards beneath
Marylebone Road
Marylebone Road ( ) is an important thoroughfare in central London, within the City of Westminster. It runs east–west from the Euston Road at Regent's Park to the A40 Westway at Paddington. The road which runs in three lanes in both direction ...
, then curve to the south under
Park Crescent and follow
Portland Place
Portland Place is a street in the Marylebone district of central London. Named after the Third Duke of Portland, the unusually wide street is home to BBC Broadcasting House, the Chinese and Polish embassies, the Royal Institute of British A ...
, Langham Place and
Regent Street
Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash and James Burton. It runs from Waterloo Place ...
to
Piccadilly Circus. It was then to run under
Haymarket Haymarket may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Haymarket, New South Wales, area of Sydney, Australia
Germany
* Heumarkt (KVB), transport interchange in Cologne on the site of the Heumarkt (literally: hay market)
Russia
* Sennaya Square (''Hay Squ ...
,
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commemo ...
and
Northumberland Avenue
Northumberland Avenue is a street in the City of Westminster, Central London, running from Trafalgar Square in the west to the Thames Embankment in the east. The road was built on the site of Northumberland House, the London home of the House ...
before passing under the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
to Waterloo station. A decision had not been made between the use of cable haulage or electric traction as the means of pulling the trains.
Bills for three similarly inspired new underground railways were also submitted to Parliament for the 1892
parliamentary session
A legislative session is the period of time in which a legislature, in both parliamentary and presidential systems, is convened for purpose of lawmaking, usually being one of two or more smaller divisions of the entire time between two elections. ...
, and, to ensure a consistent approach, a
Joint Select Committee was established to review the proposals. The committee took evidence on various matters regarding the construction and operation of deep-tube railways, and made recommendations on the diameter of tube tunnels, method of traction, and the granting of
wayleaves. After rejecting the construction of stations on land owned by the
Crown Estate
The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priva ...
and the
Duke of Portland
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...
between
Oxford Circus
Oxford Circus is a road junction connecting Oxford Street and Regent Street in the West End of London. It is also the entrance to Oxford Circus tube station.
The junction opened in 1819 as part of the Regent Street development under John Nash, ...
and Baker Street, the Committee allowed the BS&WR bill to proceed for normal parliamentary consideration.
The route was approved and the bill received
royal assent
Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...
on 28 March 1893 as the ''Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Act, 1893''.
Stations were permitted at
Baker Street
Baker Street is a street in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster in London. It is named after builder William Baker, who laid out the street in the 18th century. The street is most famous for its connection to the fictional detec ...
,
Oxford Circus
Oxford Circus is a road junction connecting Oxford Street and Regent Street in the West End of London. It is also the entrance to Oxford Circus tube station.
The junction opened in 1819 as part of the Regent Street development under John Nash, ...
,
Piccadilly Circus,
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commemo ...
,
Embankment
Embankment may refer to:
Geology and geography
* A levee, an artificial bank raised above the immediately surrounding land to redirect or prevent flooding by a river, lake or sea
* Embankment (earthworks), a raised bank to carry a road, railwa ...
and
Waterloo. The depot would have been at the south end of the line at James Street and
Lower Marsh
Lower Marsh is a street in the Waterloo neighbourhood of London, England. It is adjacent to Waterloo railway station in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is the location of Lower Marsh Market.
History
Until the early 19th century much of nor ...
.
Search for finance, 1893–1903
Although the company had permission to construct the railway, it still had to raise the
capital
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
for the construction works. The BS&WR was not alone; four other new tube railway companies were looking for investors – the
Waterloo and City Railway
The Waterloo & City line, colloquially known as The Drain, is a London Underground shuttle line that runs between Waterloo and Bank with no intermediate stops. Its primary traffic consists of commuters from south-west London, Surrey and Hamps ...
(W&CR), the
Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR) and the
Great Northern and City Railway
The Northern City Line is a commuter railway line in England, which runs from Moorgate station to Finsbury Park in London with services running beyond. It is part of the Great Northern Route services, and operates as the south-eastern branc ...
(GN&CR) (the three other companies that were put forward in bills in 1892) and the
Central London Railway
The Central London Railway (CLR), also known as the Twopenny Tube, was a deep-level, underground "tube" railwayA "tube" railway is an underground railway constructed in a cylindrical tunnel by the use of a tunnelling shield, usually deep below gr ...
(CLR, which received royal assent in 1891). The original tube railway, the C&SLR, was also raising funds to construct extensions to its existing line. Only the W&CR, which was the shortest line and was backed by the
London and South Western Railway
The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exeter ...
with a guaranteed
dividend
A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-in ...
, was able to raise its funds without difficulty. For the BS&WR and the rest, and others that came later, much of the remainder of the decade saw a struggle to find finance in an uninterested market.
![Whitaker Wright 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Whitaker_Wright_2.png)
Like most legislation of its kind, the act of 1893 imposed a time limit for the
compulsory purchase
Compulsion may refer to:
* Compulsive behavior, a psychological condition in which a person does a behavior compulsively, having an overwhelming feeling that they must do so.
* Obsessive–compulsive disorder, a mental disorder characterized by i ...
of land and the raising of capital. To keep the powers alive, the BS&WR announced a new bill in November 1895,
which included an application for an extension of time. The additional time and permission to raise an extra £100,000 of capital was granted when the ''Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Act, 1896'' received royal assent on 7 August 1896.
In November 1897, the BS&WR did a deal with the London & Globe Finance Corporation (L&GFC), a mining finance company operated by mining
speculator Whitaker Wright
James Whitaker Wright (9 February 1846 – 26 January 1904) was a company promoter and swindler, who committed suicide at the Royal Courts of Justice in London immediately following his conviction for fraud.
Early life
The eldest of five child ...
and chaired by
Lord Dufferin
Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (21 June 182612 February 1902) was a British public servant and prominent member of Victorian society. In his youth he was a popular figure in the court of Queen Vict ...
. The L&GFC was to fund and manage the construction, taking any profit from the process. The cost of construction was estimated to be £1,615,000 (equivalent to approximately £ today).
The L&GFC replaced the BS&WR's directors with its own and let construction contracts. Wright made fortunes in America and Britain by promoting gold and silver mines and saw the BS&WR as a way of diversifying the L&GFC's holdings.
In 1899, Wright fraudulently concealed large losses by one of the corporation's mines by manipulating the accounts of various L&GFC subsidiary companies. Expenditure for the BS&WR was also high, with the L&GFC having paid out approximately £650,000 (£ today) by November 1900. In its prospectus of November 1900, the company forecast that it would realise £260,000 a year from passenger traffic, with working expenses of £100,000, leaving £138,240 for dividends after the deduction of interest payments.
Only a month later, however, Wright's fraud was discovered and the L&GFC and many of its subsidiaries collapsed. Wright himself subsequently committed suicide by taking
cyanide
Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms.
In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...
during his trial at the
Royal Courts of Justice
The Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is a court building in Westminster which houses the High Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The High Court also sits on circuit and in other major cities. Designed by Ge ...
.
The BS&WR struggled on for a time, funding the construction work by making calls on the unpaid portion of its shares, but activity eventually came to a stop and the partly built tunnels were left derelict. Before its collapse, the L&GFC attempted to sell its interests in the BS&WR for £500,000 to an American consortium headed by Albert L. Johnson, but was unsuccessful. However, it attracted the interest of another American consortium headed by financier
Charles Yerkes
Charles Tyson Yerkes Jr. ( ; June 25, 1837 – December 29, 1905) was an American financier. He played a part in developing mass-transit systems in Chicago and London.
Philadelphia
Yerkes was born into a Quaker family in the Northern Liberties, ...
.
After some months of negotiations with the L&GFC's liquidator, Yerkes purchased the company for £360,000 plus interest (£ today). He was involved in the development of Chicago's
tram
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
way system in the 1880s and 1890s. He came to London in 1900 and purchased a number of the struggling underground railway companies, The BS&WR became a subsidiary of the
Underground Electric Railways Company of London
The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited (UERL), known operationally as the Underground for much of its existence, was established in 1902. It was the holding company for the three deep-level "tube"A "tube" railway is an und ...
(UERL) which Yerkes formed to raise funds to build the tube railways and to
electrify the
District Railway
The Metropolitan District Railway, also known as the District Railway, was a passenger railway that served London from 1868 to 1933. Established in 1864 to complete an " inner circle" of lines connecting railway termini in London, the first par ...
. The UERL was
capitalised at £5 million with the majority of
shares
In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...
sold to overseas investors. Further share issues followed, which raised a total of £18 million by 1903 (equivalent to approximately £ today) for use across all of the UERL's projects.
Planning the route, 1893–1904
BS&WR bill, 1896
![Baker Street & Waterloo Railway 1896](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Baker_Street_%26_Waterloo_Railway_1896.png)
While the BS&WR raised money, it continued to develop the plans for its route. The November 1895 bill sought powers to modify the planned route of the tunnels at the Baker Street end of the line and extend them approximately beyond their previous end point at the south-eastern corner of Dorset Square to the south-eastern corner of Harewood Square.
This area was to be the site of
Marylebone station
Marylebone station ( ) is a Central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the Marylebone area of the City of Westminster. On the National Rail network it is also known as London Marylebone and is the southern ter ...
, the new London terminus of the
Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway
The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) was formed in 1847 when the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway joined with authorised but unbuilt railway companies, forming a proposed network from Manchester to Grimsb ...
's extension from
the Midlands
The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...
then under construction.Approval for the extension and a new station at
Marylebone
Marylebone (usually , also , ) is a district in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, forms its southern boundary.
An Civil parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish and latterly a ...
were included in the ''Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Act, 1896''.
New Cross & Waterloo Railway bill, 1898
On 26 November 1897, details of a bill proposed for the 1898 parliamentary session were published by the New Cross and Waterloo Railway (NC&WR), an independent company promoted by
James Heath MP, which planned two separate sections of tube line that would connect directly to the BS&WR, extending the line south-east from Waterloo and east from around Marylebone Road.
![Baker Street & Waterloo Railway 1898](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Baker_Street_%26_Waterloo_Railway_1898.png)
The southern of the NC&WR's two extensions was planned to connect with the BS&WR tunnels under Belvedere Road to the west of Waterloo station and head east under the mainline station to its own station under Sandell Street adjacent to
Waterloo East station
Waterloo East railway station, also known as London Waterloo East, is a railway station in central London on the line from through London Bridge towards Kent, in the south-east of England. It is to the east of London Waterloo railway station ...
. The route was then planned to run under
Waterloo Road,
St George's Circus and
London Road to
Elephant and Castle
The Elephant and Castle is an area around a major road junction in London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark. The name also informally refers to much of Walworth and Newington, due to the proximity of the London Underground station ...
. The route then followed
New Kent Road
New Kent Road is a road in the London Borough of Southwark. The road was created in 1751 when the Turnpike Trust upgraded a local footpath. This was done as part of the general road improvements associated with the creation of Westminster Br ...
and
Old Kent Road
Old Kent Road is a major thoroughfare in South East London, England, passing through the London Borough of Southwark. It was originally part of an ancient trackway that was paved by the Romans and used by the Anglo-Saxons who named it Wæceli ...
as far as the
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR; known also as the Brighton line, the Brighton Railway or the Brighton) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at its ...
's
Old Kent Road station (closed in 1917). Intermediate stations were to be constructed at St George's Circus, Elephant and Castle (where the NC&WR station would interchange with the
C&SLR's station below ground and link to the
London, Chatham and Dover Railway's station above ground), in New Kent Road at Munton Road, at the junction of New Kent Road and Old Kent Road, and on Old Kent Road at the junctions with Mina Road, Bowles Road and Commercial Road (now Commercial Way). A power station was planned on the south side of Old Kent Road where it crossed the
Grand Surrey Canal
The Grand Surrey Canal was a canal constructed in south London, England during the early 19th century. It opened to the Old Kent Road in 1807, to Camberwell in 1810, and to Peckham in 1826. Its main purpose was to transport cargo, primarily ti ...
(now filled-in) at the junction with St James's Road. This would have provided a delivery route for fuel and a source of water. Tunnels were also planned to connect the BS&WR's proposed depot at Waterloo to the NC&WR's route enabling trains to enter and exit in two directions.
The NC&WR's other planned extension was to branch from the BS&WR's curve under Park Crescent. It was then to curve eastwards under
Regent's Park
Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies of high ground in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically betwee ...
and then run under Longford Street and
Drummond Street to end at a station on the west side of Seymour Street (now Eversholt Street) under
Euston station
Euston railway station ( ; also known as London Euston) is a central London railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, managed by Network Rail. It is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line, the UK's busiest inter-city railw ...
. An intermediate station was planned for the junction of Drummond Street and Hampstead Road.
The bill was deposited in Parliament, but no progress was made in the 1898 session and it disappeared afterwards, although the BS&WR presented a modified version of the Euston branch in a bill for the 1899 session.
BS&WR bill, 1899
![Baker Street & Waterloo Railway 1899](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Baker_Street_%26_Waterloo_Railway_1899.png)
Construction work began in August 1898, although the BS&WR was continuing to develop new route plans. The bill for 1899, published on 22 November 1898, requested more time for the construction works and proposed two extensions to the railway and a modification to part of the previously approved route.
The first extension, like the NC&WR's plan from the year before, was to branch from the already-approved route under Park Crescent, but then followed a more northerly route than the NC&WR, running under
Regent's Park
Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies of high ground in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically betwee ...
to cross the park's Outer Circle between Chester Road and Cumberland Gate where a station was to be constructed. The route then followed Cumberland Street West (now Nash Street),
Cumberland Market
Cumberland Market was a London market between Regent's Park and Euston railway station. It was built in the early 19th century and was London's hay and straw market for a hundred years until the late 1920s. An arm of the Regent's Canal was bui ...
, Cumberland Street East and Edward Street (both now Varndell Street), before ending at a station under Cardington Street on the west side of Euston station.
The second extension was to continue the line west from Marylebone, running under Great James Street and Bell Street (now both Bell Street) to Corlett Street, then turning south to reach the
Grand Junction Canal
The Grand Junction Canal is a canal in England from Braunston in Northamptonshire to the River Thames at Brentford, with a number of branches. The mainline was built between 1793 and 1805, to improve the route from the Midlands to London, by-p ...
's
Paddington Basin
Paddington Basin is the name given to a long canal basin, and its surrounding area, in Paddington, London.
The basin commences 500 m south of the junction known as Little Venice, of the Regent's Canal and the Paddington Arm of the Grand ...
to the east of the
GWR's Paddington station
Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by the Great We ...
. A station was to be located directly under the east–west arm of the basin before the line turned north-west, running between the mainline station and the basin, before the two tunnels merged into one. The single tunnel was then to turn north-east, passing under the
Regent's Canal
Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in eas ...
to the east of
Little Venice
Little Venice is a district in West London, England, around the junction of the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, the Regent's Canal, and the entrance to Paddington Basin. The junction forms a triangular shape basin. Many of the buildi ...
, before coming to the surface where a depot was to be built on the north side of Blomfield Road. The BS&WR also planned a power station at Paddington. The final change to the route was a modification at Waterloo to move the last section of the line southwards to end under Addington Street. The aim of these plans was, as the company put it in 1906, "to tap the large traffic of the South London Tramways, and to link up by a direct Line several of the most important Railway termini."
The
Metropolitan Railway
The Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex su ...
(MR), London's first underground railway, which operated between Paddington and Euston over the northern section of the
Inner Circle since 1863, saw the BS&WR's two northern extensions as competition for its own service and strongly objected. Parliament accepted the objections; when the ''Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Act, 1899'' received royal assent on 1 August 1899, only the extension of time and the route change at Waterloo were approved
BS&WR bill, 1900
![Baker Street & Waterloo Railway 1900](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Baker_Street_%26_Waterloo_Railway_1900.png)
In November 1899, the BS&WR announced a bill for the 1900 session.
Again, an extension was proposed from Marylebone to Paddington, this time terminating to the east of the mainline station at the junction of Bishop's Road (now Bishop's Bridge Road) and Gloucester Terrace. A station was planned under Bishop's Road, linked to the mainline station by a subway under Eastbourne Terrace. From Waterloo, an extension was planned to run under
Westminster Bridge Road
Westminster Bridge Road is a road in London, England. It runs on an east–west axis and passes through the boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark.
Between 1740 and 1746, the Commissioners of Westminster Bridge bought land from the Archbishop of ...
and
St George's Road
St George's Road is a one-way road in Southwark, London running between Westminster Bridge Road to the northwest and Elephant and Castle to the southeast. The direction of the vehicular traffic is from Elephant and Castle to Westminster Bridge ...
to terminate at Elephant and Castle. The BS&WR would connect there with the C&SLR's station as the NC&WR planned two years earlier. A spur was to be provided to a depot and power station that were to be constructed on the site of the School for the Indigent Blind south of St George's Circus.
The Paddington extension was aligned to allow a westward extension to continue to
Royal Oak
The Royal Oak is the English oak tree within which the future King Charles II of England hid to escape the Roundheads following the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The tree was in Boscobel Wood, which was part of the park of Boscobel House. C ...
or
Willesden
Willesden () is an area of northwest London, situated 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Charing Cross. It is historically a parish in the county of Middlesex that was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Willesden in 1933, and has formed ...
, areas already served by the MR, which again opposed the plans. This time, the BS&WR was successful and royal assent for the extensions was granted in the ''Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Act, 1900'' on 6 August 1900.
Minor changes, 1902–04
![Baker Street & Waterloo Railway 1904](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Baker_Street_%26_Waterloo_Railway_1904.png)
To make up for the time lost following the collapse of the L&GFC and to restore the BS&WR's finances, the company published a bill in November 1901, which sought another extension of time and permission to change its funding arrangements.
The bill was approved as the ''Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Act, 1902'' on 18 November 1902.
For the 1903 parliamentary session, the UERL announced bills for the BS&WR and its other tube railways, seeking permission to merge the three companies by transferring the BS&WR's and CCE&HR's powers to the
Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway
The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (GNP&BR), also known as the Piccadilly tube, was a railway company established in 1902 that constructed a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London.A "tube" railway is an underground rail ...
(GNP&BR). The BS&WR bill also included requests for a further extension of time and for powers to compulsorily purchase land for an electrical sub-station at Lambeth.
The merger was rejected by Parliament, but the land purchase and extension of time were permitted separately in the ''Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Act, 1903'' and the ''Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (Extension of Time) Act, 1903'', both given royal assent on 11 August 1903.
In the 1904 Parliamentary session, the BS&WR sought and received permission for new stations at
Lambeth
Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area expe ...
,
Regent's Park
Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies of high ground in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically betwee ...
and
Edgware Road
Edgware Road is a major road in London, England. The route originated as part of Roman Watling Street and, unusually in London, it runs for 10 miles in an almost perfectly straight line. Forming part of the modern A5 road, Edgware Road undergoes ...
.
Construction, 1898–1906
Construction commenced in the summer of 1898 under the direction of Sir
Benjamin Baker (who co-designed the
Forth Bridge
The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in ...
),
W.R. Galbraith
William Robert Galbraith (7 July 1829 – 5 October 1914)Marshall, 2003 was a civil engineer in the United Kingdom during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was employed by the London and South Western Railway as a consulting engineer ...
and R.F. Church. The works were carried out by Perry & Company of Tregedar Works,
Bow.
The main construction site was located at a substantial temporary staging pier erected in the River Thames a short distance south of the
Hungerford Bridge
The Hungerford Bridge crosses the River Thames in London, and lies between Waterloo Bridge and Westminster Bridge. Owned by Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd (who use its official name of Charing Cross Bridge) it is a steel truss railway bridge ...
. It was described at the time as "a small village of workshops and offices and an electrical generating station to provide the power for driving the machinery and for lighting purposes during construction." The wide stage was located from the Hungerford Bridge's first pier, from the north bank of the Thames. It was originally intended that the work should begin close to the south bank, with a bridge connecting the stage to College Street – a now-vanished road on the site of the present-day
Jubilee Gardens. However, test borings showed that there was a deep depression in the gravel beneath the Thames, which it was speculated was the result of dredging carried out for the abortive Charing Cross & Waterloo Railway project. This led to the work site being relocated to the north side of the river.
![Bakerloo Thames tunnelling](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Bakerloo_Thames_tunnelling.png)
Two
caissons were sunk into the river bed below the stage. From there, the tunnels were constructed in each direction using
Barlow-
Greathead tunnelling shield
A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used during the excavation of large, man-made tunnels. When excavating through ground that is soft, liquid, or otherwise unstable, there is a potential health and safety hazard to workers and the proj ...
s of a similar design to those used to construct the C&SLR. The north tunnel was constructed first, commencing in February 1899, followed by the south tunnel from March 1900. This was technically the most difficult stage of the project, as it necessitated tunnelling under the river. The tunnellers worked in an atmosphere of compressed air at up to to prevent water leaking into the excavations.
On several occasions, however, the tunnel was breached and escaping air caused "blowouts", producing water spouts up to high above the surface of the river. One such blowout disrupted
Doggett's Coat and Badge race. By using the river as the centre of tunnelling operations, the company was able to remove excavated soil onto barges and bring in required material the same way, thus avoiding having to transport large amounts of material through the streets. Tunnelling also took place from station sites, notably at Piccadilly Circus. The tunnellers worked with a remarkable degree of accuracy given the technology of the time; the tunnel being driven north from the Thames eventually reached the one being dug south from Piccadilly Circus, meeting under
Haymarket Haymarket may refer to:
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* Haymarket, New South Wales, area of Sydney, Australia
Germany
* Heumarkt (KVB), transport interchange in Cologne on the site of the Heumarkt (literally: hay market)
Russia
* Sennaya Square (''Hay Squ ...
, with a deviation of only three-quarters of an inch (1.9 cm).
The tunnel linings were formed from cast iron segments inch (2.22 cm) thick, which locked together to form a ring with an internal diameter of . Once a ring was completed,
grout
Grout is a dense fluid which hardens to fill gaps or used as reinforcement in existing structures. Grout is generally a mixture of water, cement and sand, and is employed in pressure grouting, embedding rebar in masonry walls, connecting secti ...
was injected through holes in the segments to fill any voids between the outside edge of the ring and the excavated ground beyond, reducing
subsidence
Subsidence is a general term for downward vertical movement of the Earth's surface, which can be caused by both natural processes and human activities. Subsidence involves little or no horizontal movement, which distinguishes it from slope move ...
. By November 1899 the northbound tunnel reached Trafalgar Square and work on some of the station sites was started, but the collapse of the L&GFC in 1900 led to works gradually coming to a halt. When the UERL was constituted in April 1902, 50 per cent of the tunnelling and 25 per cent of the station work was completed.
With funds in place, work restarted and proceeded at a rate of per week, so that by February 1904 virtually all of the tunnels and underground parts of the stations between Elephant & Castle and Marylebone were complete and works on the station buildings were under way.
The additional stations were incorporated as work continued elsewhere and Oxford Circus station was altered below ground following a
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
inspection; at the end of 1905, the first test trains began running. Although the BS&WR had permission to continue to Paddington, no work was undertaken beyond Edgware Road.
The BS&WR used a
Westinghouse automatic signalling system operated through electric
track circuit
A track circuit is an electrical device used to prove the absence of a train on rail tracks to signallers and control relevant signals. An alternative to track circuits are axle counters.
Principles and operation
The basic principle behind t ...
s. This controlled signals based on the presence or absence of a train on the track ahead. Signals incorporated an arm that was raised when the signal was red. If a train failed to stop at a red signal, the arm activated a "
tripcock
Part of a railway signalling system, a train stop, trip stop or tripcock (sometimes called a tripper) is a train protection device that automatically stops a train if it attempts to pass a signal when the signal aspect and operating rules proh ...
" on the train, applying the brakes automatically.
Stations were provided with surface buildings designed by architect
Leslie Green
Leslie William Green (6 February 1875 – 31 August 1908) was an English architect. He is best known for his design of iconic stations constructed on the London Underground railway system in central London during the first decade of the 20t ...
in the UERL house-style. This consisted of two-storey steel-framed buildings faced with red glazed
terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, a ...
blocks, with wide semi-circular windows on the upper floor. They were designed with flat roofs to enable additional storeys to be constructed for commercial occupants, maximising the
air rights
Air rights are the property interest in the "space" above the earth's surface. Generally speaking, owning, or renting, land or a building includes the right to use and build in the space above the land without interference by others.
This legal ...
of the property. Except for Embankment, which had a sloping passageway down to the platforms, each station was provided with between two and four
lifts and an emergency spiral staircase in a separate shaft. At platform level, the wall tiling featured the station name and an individual geometric pattern and colour scheme designed by Green.
It was originally intended that the electrical supply to the line and stations would be provided by a dedicated generating station at St George's Road, Southwark. This idea was abandoned in 1902 and electricity was instead provided by
Lots Road Power Station
Lots Road Power Station is a disused coal and later oil-fired and later gas-fired power station on the River Thames at Lots Road in Chelsea, London in the south-west of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, which supplied electricity to ...
, operated by the UERL.
Six ventilation fans were installed along the line to draw 18,500 cubic feet per minute through the tunnels and out through exhausts placed on the roof of the stations. Fresh air was drawn back down from the surface via the lift and staircase shafts, thus replenishing the air in the tunnels. To reduce the risk of fire, the station platforms were built of concrete and iron and the sleepers were made from the fireproof Australian wood ''
Eucalyptus marginata
''Eucalyptus marginata'', commonly known as jarrah, djarraly in Noongar language and historically as Swan River mahogany, is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a tree with rough ...
'' or jarrah.
The design of the
permanent way
A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers, ...
was a departure from that of London's previous tube railways, which used track laid on timber baulks across the tunnel with the bottom of the tube left open. This approach caused what the BS&WR's management regarded as an unacceptable level of vibrations. They resolved this by mounting the sleepers on supports made of sand and cement grout, with the sleeper ends resting on comparatively soft broken stone ballast underneath the running rails. A drain ran parallel with the rails underneath the middle of the track. The rails themselves were unusually short – only long – as this was the maximum length that could be brought in through the shafts and then turned horizontally to be carried into the tunnels. Power was supplied through third (positive) and fourth (negative) rails laid in the middle and outside of the track, as used on the
District Railway
The Metropolitan District Railway, also known as the District Railway, was a passenger railway that served London from 1868 to 1933. Established in 1864 to complete an " inner circle" of lines connecting railway termini in London, the first par ...
.
Opening
The official opening of the BS&WR by
Sir Edwin Cornwall, chairman of the
London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...
, took place on 10 March 1906. Shortly after the line's opening, the London ''
Evening News Evening News may refer to:
Television news
*''CBS Evening News'', an American news broadcast
*''ITV Evening News'', a UK news broadcast
*'' JNN Evening News'', a Japanese news broadcast
*''Evening News'', an alternate name for '' News Hour'' in so ...
'' columnist "Quex"
coined the abbreviated name "Baker-loo", which quickly caught on and began to be used officially from July 1906, appearing on contemporary maps of the tube lines.
The nickname was, however, deplored by ''
The Railway Magazine
''The Railway Magazine'' is a monthly British railway magazine, aimed at the railway enthusiast market, that has been published in London since July 1897. it was, for three years running, the railway magazine with the largest circulation in t ...
'', which complained: "Some latitude is allowable, perhaps, to halfpenny papers, in the use of nicknames, but for a railway itself to adopt its gutter title, is not what we expect from a railway company. English railway officers have more dignity than to act in this manner."
The railway had stations at:
While construction was being finished, trains operated out of service beyond Baker Street, reversing at a
crossover
Crossover may refer to:
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Albums and songs
* ''Cross Over'' (Dan Peek album)
* ''Crossover'' (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles album), 1987
* ''Crossover'' (Intrigue album)
* ''Crossover'' (Hitomi Shimatani album)
* ''Crossover'' (Yoshino ...
to the east of the station under construction at Marylebone.
Rolling stock, fares and schedules
![Baker Street Waterloo Railway platform March 1906](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Baker_Street_Waterloo_Railway_platform_March_1906.png)
The service was provided by a fleet of 108
carriages
A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...
manufactured for the UERL in the United States by the
American Car and Foundry Company
ACF Industries, originally the American Car and Foundry Company (abbreviated as ACF), is an American manufacturer of railroad rolling stock. One of its subsidiaries was once (1925–54) a manufacturer of motor coaches and trolley coaches und ...
and assembled in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. They were transported to London by rail but because the BS&WR had no external railway connections, the carriages then had to be transported across the city on horse-drawn wagons to their destination at London Road depot.
The carriages operated as
electric multiple unit
An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...
trains without separate locomotives. Passengers boarded and left the trains through folding lattice gates at each end of cars; these gates were operated by gate-men who rode on an outside platform and announced station names as trains arrived. The design was subsequently used for the GNP&BR and the CCE&HR, and became known on the Underground as the
1906 stock or Gate stock. Trains for the line were stabled at the London Road depot south of Kennington Road station.
The line operated from 5:30 am to 12:30 am on weekdays (including Saturdays), and 7:30 am to 12 noon on Sundays. The standard one-way fare following the line's opening was 2''
d.'' ("workmen's tickets" at 2''d.'' return were available up to 7:58 am) and a book of 25 tickets was available at 4''
s.'' However, the original flat fares were abandoned in July 1906 and replaced with graded fares of between 1''d.'' and 3''d.''
In November 1906, season tickets were introduced along with through tickets with the District Railway (interchanging at Charing Cross). It was not until December 1907 that it was possible to buy a through ticket onto the Central London Railway (via Oxford Circus). The BS&WR abolished its season tickets in October 1908 and replaced them with strip tickets, sold in sets of six, that could be used on the Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Hampstead tubes.
The service frequency as of mid-1906 was as follows:
; Weekdays
* From 5:30 am to 7:30 am: every 5 minutes
* From 7:30 am to 11:30 pm: every 3 minutes
* From 11:30 pm to 12:30 am: every 6 minutes
; Sundays
* From 7:30 am to 11 am: every 6 minutes
* From 11 am to 12 noon: every 3 minutes
Co-operation and consolidation, 1906–10
![Baker Street Waterloo Railway station March 1906](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Baker_Street_Waterloo_Railway_station_March_1906.png)
Despite the UERL's success in financing and constructing the railway, its opening did not bring the financial success that had been expected. In the Bakerloo Tube's first twelve months of operation it carried 20.5 million passengers, less than sixty per cent of the 35 million that had been predicted during the planning of the line. The UERL's pre-opening predictions of passenger numbers for its other new lines proved to be similarly over-optimistic, as did the projected figures for the newly electrified DR – in each case, numbers achieved only around fifty per cent of their targets. 37,000 people used the line on the first day, but in the months following the line's opening only about 20,000–30,000 passengers a day used the service. The number of carriages used by the BS&WR was cut back to three per train at peak times and only two during off-peak hours.
The ''Daily Mail'' reported in April 1906 that the rush-hour trains were carrying fewer than 100 people at a time. To add to the line's misfortunes, it suffered its first fatality only two weeks after opening when conductor John Creagh was crushed between a train and a tunnel wall at Kennington Road station on 26 March.
The lower than expected passenger numbers were partly due to competition between the tube and sub-surface railway companies, but the introduction of electric trams and motor buses, replacing slower, horse-drawn road transport, took a large number of passengers away from the trains. The ''Daily Mirror'' noted at the end of April 1906 that the BS&WR offered poor value for money compared to the equivalent motor bus service, which cost only 1''d.'' per journey, and that passengers disliked the distances that they had to walk between the trains and the lifts.
Such problems were not limited to the UERL; all of London's seven tube lines and the sub-surface DR and Metropolitan Railway were affected to some degree. The reduced revenue generated from the lower passenger numbers made it difficult for the UERL and the other railways to pay back the capital borrowed, or to pay dividends to shareholders.
From 1907, in an effort to improve their finances, the UERL, the C&SLR, the CLR and the GN&CR began to introduce fare agreements. From 1908, they began to present themselves through common branding as the ''Underground''.
The UERL's three tube railway companies were still legally separate entities, with their own management, shareholder and dividend structures. There was duplicated administration between the three companies and, to streamline the management and reduce expenditure, the UERL announced a bill in November 1909 that would merge the Bakerloo, the Hampstead and the Piccadilly Tubes into a single entity, the
London Electric Railway
The London Electric Railway (LER) was an underground railway company operating three lines on the London Underground. It was formed in 1910 and existed until 1933, when it was merged into the London Passenger Transport Board.
History
The LER wa ...
(LER), although the lines retained their own individual branding.
The bill received Royal Assent on 26 July 1910 as the ''London Electric Railway Amalgamation Act, 1910''.
Extensions
Paddington, 1906–13
![Baker Street & Waterloo Railway 1906](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Baker_Street_%26_Waterloo_Railway_1906.png)
Having planned a westward extension in 1900 to
Willesden Junction
Willesden Junction is a railway station in Harlesden, north-west London, UK. It is served by both London Overground and London Underground services.
History
The station developed on three contiguous sites: the West Coast Main Line (WCML) st ...
, the company had been unable to decide on a route beyond Paddington and had postponed further construction while it considered options. In November 1905, the BS&WR announced a bill for 1906 that replaced the route from Edgware Road to Paddington approved in 1900 with a new alignment.
This had the tunnels crossing under the Paddington basin with the station under London Street. The tunnels were to continue south-east beyond the station as sidings, to end under the junction of Grand Junction Road and Devonport Street (now Sussex Gardens and Sussex Place). In a pamphlet published in 1906 to publicise the Paddington extension, the company proclaimed:
The changes were permitted by the ''Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Act, 1906'' on 4 August 1906,
but the south-east alignment did not represent a suitable direction to continue the railway and no effort was made to construct the extension.
In 1908, the Bakerloo Tube attempted to make the hoped-for extension into north-west London using the existing powers of the
North West London Railway (NWLR), an unbuilt tube railway with permission to build a line from
Cricklewood
Cricklewood is an area of London, England, which spans the boundaries of three London boroughs: Barnet to the east, Brent to the west and Camden to the south-east. The Crown pub, now the Clayton Crown Hotel, is a local landmark and lies north- ...
to
Victoria station. The NWLR announced a bill in November 1908 seeking to construct a connection between its unbuilt route beneath the
Edgware Road
Edgware Road is a major road in London, England. The route originated as part of Roman Watling Street and, unusually in London, it runs for 10 miles in an almost perfectly straight line. Forming part of the modern A5 road, Edgware Road undergoes ...
and the Bakerloo Tube's Edgware Road station.
The NWLR route to Victoria was to be abandoned south of the connection and the Bakerloo Tube's planned route to Paddington was to be built as a shuttle line from Edgware Road, which was to be provided with two additional platforms for shuttle use. The Bakerloo Tube was to construct the extension and operate the service over the combined route, which was to have stations at St John's Wood Road, Abercorn Place, Belsize Road (close to the
LNWR station),
Brondesbury
Brondesbury (), which includes Brondesbury Park, is an area in the London Borough of Brent, in London, England. The area is traditionally part of the Ancient Parish and subsequent Municipal Borough of Willesden, one of the areas that merged to ...
(to interchange with the
North London Railway's station and close to the
MR's Kilburn station), Minster Road and
Cricklewood
Cricklewood is an area of London, England, which spans the boundaries of three London boroughs: Barnet to the east, Brent to the west and Camden to the south-east. The Crown pub, now the Clayton Crown Hotel, is a local landmark and lies north- ...
. The Bakerloo Tube announced its own bill to make the necessary changes to its existing plans.
![Baker Street & Waterloo Railway 1908](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Baker_Street_%26_Waterloo_Railway_1908.png)
The GWR objected to the reduction of the Bakerloo Tube's Paddington connection to a shuttle and the MR objected to the connection of the two lines, which would be in competition with its line through
Kilburn. Parliament rejected the proposed connection and the changes to the NWLR's route and the company's permissions eventually expired without any construction work being carried out. The Bakerloo Tube bill was withdrawn.
In November 1910, the LER (of which the Bakerloo Tube was now part) revived plans for the Paddington extension when it published a bill for the 1911 Parliamentary session.
The new route ran in a tight curve from Edgware Road station, initially heading south before turning to the north-west, which provided a more practical direction for a future extension. The bill was supported by the GWR with funding of £18,000. The ''London Electric Railway Act, 1911'' received royal assent on 2 June 1911.
Construction started in August 1911,
and was completed in a little over two years. The extension opened on 1 December 1913, with the single new station at
Paddington
Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Paddi ...
. Following their successful introduction at Earl's Court in 1911, the station was the first on the line to be designed to use
escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizo ...
s instead of lifts.
Queen's Park and Watford, 1911–17
In 1907, the
LNWR
The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom.
In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lond ...
obtained parliamentary permission to improve its mainline services into London by the construction of a pair of new electrified tracks alongside its existing line between
Watford Junction
Watford Junction is a railway station that serves Watford, Hertfordshire. The station is on the West Coast Main Line (WCML), 17 miles 34 chains from London Euston and the Abbey Line, a branch line to St Albans. Journeys to London take between 16 ...
in Hertfordshire and
Queen's Park, Kilburn and a new tube section beneath its lines from there to its terminus at
Euston. At Euston, the tube tunnel was to end with an underground station on a long loop beneath the mainline station.
The LNWR began construction work on the surface section of the new tracks in 1909. By 1911, it had modified the plans to omit the underground section and to split its proposed electrified services into three. The first section was to follow the existing surface route into Euston on newly electrified tracks, the second section was to connect with the North London Railway at
Chalk Farm
Chalk Farm is a small urban district of north London, lying immediately north of Camden Town, in the London Borough of Camden.
History
Manor of Rugmere
Chalk Farm was originally known as the Manor of Rugmere, an estate that was mentioned in ...
and continue on electrified tracks from there to
Broad Street station in the
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
. The third section involved the extension of the Bakerloo Tube from Paddington to Queen's Park.
![Kilburn park tube station](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Kilburn_park_tube_station.jpg)
With the extension to Paddington still under construction, the LER published a bill in November 1911 for the continuation to Queen's Park.
The extension was to continue north from Paddington, running past Little Venice to Maida Vale before curving north-west to Kilburn and then west to parallel the LNWR main line, before coming to the surface a short distance to the east of Queen's Park station. Three intermediate stations were to be provided: on
Warwick Avenue at the junction with Warrington Avenue, Clifton Villas and Clifton Gardens; at the junction of Elgin and Randolph Avenues (named
Maida Vale
Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district consisting of the northern part of Paddington in West London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is also the name of its main road, on the continuous Edgware Road. Maida Vale is p ...
); and on Cambridge Avenue (named
Kilburn Park). The LNWR gave a £1 million loan to the LER at 4% interest in perpetuity to help finance the extension. The bill received royal assent on 7 August 1912 as the ''London Electric Railway Act, 1912''.
Progress on the section from Paddington to Queen's Park was slowed by the start of World War I, so the line was not finished until early 1915. As at Paddington, the three below-ground stations were built to use escalators. Maida Vale and Kilburn Park were provided with buildings in the style of the earlier Leslie Green stations but without the upper storey, which was no longer required for housing lift gear. Warwick Avenue was accessed from a subway under the street. The LNWR rebuilt Queen's Park station with additional platforms for the Bakerloo Tube's and its own electric services and constructed two train sheds for rolling stock, one each side of the station.
Although the tracks were completed to Queen's Park, delays to the completion of the stations caused the extension to open in stages:
*
Warwick Avenue, on 31 January 1915
*
Maida Vale
Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district consisting of the northern part of Paddington in West London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is also the name of its main road, on the continuous Edgware Road. Maida Vale is p ...
, on 6 June 1915
*
Kilburn Park, on 31 January 1915
*
Queen's Park, on 11 February 1915
North of Queen's Park, the LNWR had opened its new lines between Willesden Junction and Watford during 1912 and 1913, together with new stations at
Harlesden
Harlesden is a district in the London Borough of Brent, North West London.
Located north of the Grand Union Canal and Wormwood Scrubs, the Harrow Road flows through the centre of the area which goes eastwards to Central London and west towards ...
,
Stonebridge Park,
North Wembley
North Wembley is a district in North West London, England. It is located in the London Borough of Brent and is mostly made up of the 1930s Sudbury Court Estate. North Wembley forms the north-western part of the district of that is its namesake. ...
,
Kenton and
Headstone Lane. The new tracks between Queen's Park and Willesden Junction opened on 10 May 1915, when Bakerloo Tube services were extended there. On 16 April 1917, the tube service was extended to Watford Junction. North of Queen's Park, the Bakerloo Tube served the following stations:
![Headstone Lane stn building](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Headstone_Lane_stn_building.JPG)
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Kensal Green
Kensal Green is an area in north-west London. It lies mainly in the London Borough of Brent, with a small part to the south within Kensington and Chelsea. Kensal Green is located on the Harrow Road, about miles from Charing Cross.
To the w ...
*
Willesden Junction
Willesden Junction is a railway station in Harlesden, north-west London, UK. It is served by both London Overground and London Underground services.
History
The station developed on three contiguous sites: the West Coast Main Line (WCML) st ...
*
Harlesden
Harlesden is a district in the London Borough of Brent, North West London.
Located north of the Grand Union Canal and Wormwood Scrubs, the Harrow Road flows through the centre of the area which goes eastwards to Central London and west towards ...
*
Stonebridge Park
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Wembley for Sudbury (now Wembley Central)
*
North Wembley
North Wembley is a district in North West London, England. It is located in the London Borough of Brent and is mostly made up of the 1930s Sudbury Court Estate. North Wembley forms the north-western part of the district of that is its namesake. ...
*
Kenton
*
Harrow & Wealdstone
*
Headstone Lane
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Pinner & Hatch End (later Hatch End for Pinner, now Hatch End)
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Carpenders Park, opened 5 May 1919
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Bushey & Oxhey (now Bushey)
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Watford High Street
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Watford Junction
Watford Junction is a railway station that serves Watford, Hertfordshire. The station is on the West Coast Main Line (WCML), 17 miles 34 chains from London Euston and the Abbey Line, a branch line to St Albans. Journeys to London take between 16 ...
For the extension to Queen's Park, the LER supplemented the existing rolling stock with 14 new carriages ordered from
Brush Traction
Brush Traction is a manufacturer and maintainer of railway locomotives in Loughborough, England. It is a subsidiary of Wabtec.
History
Hughes's Locomotive & Tramway Engine Works
Henry Hughes had been operating at the Falcon Works since t ...
and
Leeds Forge Company
The Leeds Forge Company manufactured corrugated furnaces for marine steam engine boilers and later, pressed steel railway vehicles, in Leeds, England.
Early history
The company was founded by Samson Fox, who was born in 1838 in Bradford, Yorks ...
plus spare Gate stock carriages from the GNP&BR. These carriages, the
1914 stock, were the first to have doors in the sides of the carriages as well as the ends. For the longer extension to Watford, the LER and the LNWR ordered 72 new carriages from the
Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Company. Manufacture of this rolling stock was delayed by the war, and, while it was waiting for delivery, the Bakerloo Tube used spare
1915 stock carriages ordered for an unfinished extension of the CLR to
Ealing Broadway
Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan.
Ealing was histor ...
and more spare Gate stock carriages from the GNP&BR. Delivery of the carriages for the Watford service, known as the
Watford Joint stock because ownership was shared with the LNWR, began in 1920; they were painted in the LNWR's livery to distinguish them from trains operating only on the Bakerloo Tube's tracks.
Camberwell and south-east London
The southern termination of the line at Elephant & Castle presented the opportunity for the line to be extended further, to serve Camberwell and other destinations in south-east London. In 1913, the
Lord Mayor of London
The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powe ...
announced a proposal for the Bakerloo Tube to be extended to
the Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibit ...
via
Camberwell Green,
Dulwich
Dulwich (; ) is an area in south London, England. The settlement is mostly in the London Borough of Southwark, with parts in the London Borough of Lambeth, and consists of Dulwich Village, East Dulwich, West Dulwich, and the Southwark half of ...
and
Sydenham Hill
Sydenham Hill forms part of a longer ridge and is an affluent locality in southeast London. It is also the name of a road which runs along the northeastern part of the ridge, demarcating the London Boroughs of Southwark, Bromley, and Lewisham ...
, but nothing was done to implement the plan. In 1921, the LER costed an extension to Camberwell, Dulwich and Sydenham and in 1922 plans for an extension to
Orpington
Orpington is a town and area in south east London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is 13.4 miles (21.6 km) south east of Charing Cross.
On the south-eastern edge of the Greater London Built-up Area, it is south of St Ma ...
via
Loughborough Junction
Loughborough Junction is an area of South London, in the London Borough of Lambeth, which is located equidistant between Brixton, Camberwell and Herne Hill.
Loughborough Junction is centred on a rail junction consisting of seven railway ...
and
Catford
Catford is a district in south east London, England, and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Lewisham. It is southwest of Lewisham itself, mostly in the Rushey Green (ward), Rushey Green and Catford South Ward (electoral subdiv ...
were considered. In 1928, a route to
Rushey Green via Dulwich was suggested. Again, no action was taken, although the
London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee
The London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee was established in 1924 to advise the Minister of Transport on issues concerning traffic and transport in the London Traffic Area. It was abolished in 1965.
The purpose of the Committee, a ...
approved an extension to Camberwell in 1926.
In 1931, an extension to Camberwell was approved as part of the ''London Electric Metropolitan District and Central London Railway Companies (Works) Act, 1931''.
The route was to follow
Walworth Road
The A215 is an A roads in Great Britain, A road in south London, starting at Elephant and Castle and finishing around Shirley, London, Shirley. It runs through the London Boroughs of London Borough of Lambeth, Lambeth, London Borough of Southw ...
and
Camberwell Road south from Elephant and Castle, with stations at Albany Road and under Denmark Hill road at Camberwell. Elephant & Castle station was to be reconstructed with a third platform, a new ticket hall and escalators. However, financial constraints prevented any work from being started.
Improvements, 1914–28
![Piccadilly Circus ticket hall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Piccadilly_Circus_ticket_hall.JPG)
Overcrowding was a major problem at many stations where interchanges were made with other Underground lines and efforts were made in a number of places to improve passenger movements. In 1914, work was carried out to provide larger ticket halls and install escalators at Oxford Circus, Embankment and Baker Street. In 1923, further work at Oxford Circus provided a combined Bakerloo and CLR ticket hall and added more escalators serving the CLR platforms. In 1926, Trafalgar Square and Waterloo received escalators, the latter in conjunction with expansion of the station as part of the CCE&HR's extension to
Kennington
Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between the ...
. Between 1925 and 1928, Piccadilly Circus station saw the greatest reconstruction. A large circular ticket hall was excavated below the road junction with multiple subway connections from points around the Circus and two flights of escalators down to the Bakerloo and Piccadilly platforms were installed.
Move to public ownership, 1923–33
Despite closer co-operation and improvements made to the Bakerloo stations and to other parts of the network, the Underground railways continued to struggle financially. The UERL's ownership of the highly profitable
London General Omnibus Company
The London General Omnibus Company or LGOC, was the principal bus operator in London between 1855 and 1933. It was also, for a short period between 1909 and 1912, a motor bus manufacturer.
Overview
The London General Omnibus Company was fou ...
(LGOC) since 1912 had enabled the UERL group, through the pooling of revenue, to use profits from the bus company to subsidise the less profitable railways. However, competition from numerous small bus companies during the early 1920s eroded the profitability of the LGOC and had a negative impact on the profitability of the whole UERL group.
To protect the UERL group's income, its chairman
Lord Ashfield lobbied
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which ...
the government for regulation of transport services in the London area. Starting in 1923, a series of legislative initiatives were made in this direction, with Ashfield and
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...
lor (later
MP and
Minister of Transport
A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government agen ...
)
Herbert Morrison
Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, (3 January 1888 – 6 March 1965) was a British politician who held a variety of senior positions in the UK Cabinet as member of the Labour Party. During the inter-war period, he was Mini ...
at the forefront of debates as to the level of regulation and public control under which transport services should be brought. Ashfield aimed for regulation that would give the UERL group protection from competition and allow it to take substantive control of the
LCC's tram system; Morrison preferred full public ownership. After seven years of false starts, a bill was announced at the end of 1930 for the formation of the
London Passenger Transport Board
The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for local public transport in London and its environs from 1933 to 1948. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and brand was Lond ...
(LPTB), a public corporation that would take control of the UERL, the Metropolitan Railway and all bus and tram operators within an area designated as the
London Passenger Transport Area
The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for local public transport
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passe ...
.
The Board was a compromise – public ownership but not full
nationalisation
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
– and came into existence on 1 July 1933. On this date, the LER and the other Underground companies were
liquidated
Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end in Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and many other countries. The assets and property of the company are redistrib ...
.
Legacy
The plan for the extension to Camberwell was kept alive throughout the 1930s and, in 1940, the permission was used to construct sidings beyond Elephant & Castle. After the Second World War, the plans were revised again, with stations located under Walworth Road and Camberwell Green, and the extension appeared on tube maps in 1949.
Rising construction costs caused by difficult ground conditions and restricted funds in the post-war austerity period led the scheme to be cancelled again in 1950. Various proposals have been evaluated since, including an extension to
Peckham
Peckham () is a district in southeast London, within the London Borough of Southwark. It is south-east of Charing Cross. At the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 Census the Peckham ward had a population of 14,720.
History
"Peckham" is a Saxon p ...
considered in the early 1970s, but the costs have always out-weighed the
benefits.
One of the LPTB's first acts in charge of the Bakerloo line was the opening of a new station at
South Kenton on 3 July 1933. As part of the LPTB's
New Works Programme
The New Works Programme of 1935–1940 was the major investment programme delivered by the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB), commonly known as London Transport, which had been created in 1933 to coordinate underground train, tram, trolley ...
announced in 1935, new tube tunnels were constructed from Baker Street to the former MR station at
Finchley Road
Finchley Road is a designated arterial road in north-west London, England. The Finchley Road starts in St John's Wood near central London as part of the A41; its southern half is a major dual carriageway with high traffic levels often freque ...
and the Bakerloo line took over the stopping service to
Wembley Park
Wembley Park is a district of the London Borough of Brent, England. It is roughly centred on Bridge Road, a mile northeast of Wembley town centre and northwest from Charing Cross.
The name Wembley Park refers to the area that, at its broadest ...
and the MR's
Stanmore branch. The service opened in November 1939 and remained part of the Bakerloo line until 1979 when it transferred to the
Jubilee line
The Jubilee line is a London Underground line that runs between in east London and in the suburban north-west, via the Docklands, South Bank and West End. Opened in 1979, it is the newest line on the Underground network, although some secti ...
.
The Bakerloo line's Watford service frequency was gradually reduced and from 1965 ran only during rush hours. In 1982, the service beyond Stonebridge Park was ended as part of the fall-out of the cancellation of the
Greater London Council
The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...
's ''Fares Fair'' subsidies policy. A peak hours service was restored to Harrow & Wealdstone in 1984 and a full service was restored in 1989.
Notes and references
Notes
References
Bibliography
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External links
London Transport Museum Photographic Archive – Bakerloo Tube images
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker Street And Waterloo Railway
Predecessor companies of the London Underground
Railway companies disestablished in 1933
Railway companies established in 1893
Transport in the London Borough of Brent
Transport in the London Borough of Camden
Transport in the London Borough of Harrow
Transport in Hertfordshire
Transport in the London Borough of Lambeth
Transport in the London Borough of Southwark
Transport in the City of Westminster
Underground Electric Railways Company of London
1893 establishments in England
British companies established in 1893