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Black
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White
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1890
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Deep Tube
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1995 Tube Stock
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50
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58
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36
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206,734,000
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Golders Green<br />Morden<br />Highgate<br />Edgware
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The is a deep-level tube line of the
London Underground , coloured black on the
Tube Map . With two routes through the central area and two to the north, it is one of the more complicated lines on the system. Despite its name, it is the Underground line that extends furthest south.
]]
The (C&SLR), London's first deep-level tube railway, was built under the supervision of
James Henry Greathead who had been responsible, with
Peter W. Barlow , for the
Tower Subway . It opened in November
1890 from
Stockwell to a now-disused station at
King William Street ; the latter was inconveniently placed and unable to cope with the traffic, so in
1900 a new route to
Moorgate via
Bank was opened. By
1907 the C&SLR had been extended to run from
Clapham Common to
Euston .
The (CCE&HR) (known as the "Hampstead Tube") was opened in
1907 and ran from
Charing Cross (known for many years as
Strand ) to
Golders Green and Highgate (now known as
Archway ). It was extended south by one stop to
Embankment in
1914 .
In
1913 the two lines came into common ownership, and during the
1920s connections were built so that the two lines joined at
Camden Town and
Kennington . The tunnels of the CSLR were also expanded to match the standard size and the lines were extended from
Golders Green to
Edgware in the north (
1923 and
1924 ) and from
Clapham Common to
Morden in the south (
1926 ). The resulting line became known as the , although a number of alternative names were also mooted in the fashion of the contraction of Baker Street & Waterloo Railway to "
Bakerloo ", such as "Edgmorden" and "Medgware". It was eventually named the Northern Line in
1937 .
The
Morden extension added seven new stations all designed by
Charles Holden in a modern style that became known as the "Morden Style". With the exception of the stations at Morden and
Clapham South , where more land was available, the new stations were generally built on confined corner sites at main road junctions in already developed areas. Holden made good use of his limited space and designed impressive buildings. The street level structures are of white portland stone with tall double height ticket halls with the famous
London Underground roundel design made up in coloured glass panels in large glazed screens. The stone columns framing the glass screens are summounted by a capital formed as a three dimensional version of the roundel. The large expanse of glass ensured that the ticket halls were bright and, lit from within at night, welcoming. The first and last new stations on the extension, Morden and Clapham South, included a parade of shops and were designed with structures capable of being built above (like many of the earlier central London stations). Clapham South was extended upwards around the time of its original construction with a block of apartments; Morden was extended upwards in the
1960s with a block of offices. All the stations on the extension are now Grade II
Listed Building s with the exception of Morden.
After
Nationalisation in
1933 the Great Northern & City Railway, which ran from
Moorgate to
Finsbury Park , became part of the Underground as the
Northern City Line ; it was operated as part of the Northern Line, though it was never connected to it.
In June
1935 an ambitious plan of new extensions was announced by LT, including the integration of a complex of existing
London And North Eastern Railway (LNER) lines north of Highgate across the "Northern Heights". These lines, original built in the
1860s and
1870s by the (and its successors), ran from
Finsbury Park to
Edgware via Highgate, with branches to
Alexandra Palace and
High Barnet . The line taken over would also be extended beyond Edgware to
Brockley Hill ,
Elstree South and
Bushey Heath and a new depot at Aldenham. This would involve electrification of the surface lines (served by steam trains at the time) and the construction of three new linking sections of track: a connection between the Northern City Line and Finsbury Park station on the surface, an extension of the Highgate branch tube to the LNER line near East Finchley via new deep-level platforms below the existing Highgate station and a short diversion from before the LNER's existing station at Edgware to the Underground's station on the same name.
Work began in the late
1930s , but was disrupted by the start of the War. Sufficient progress had been made on the Highgate link and the High Barnet branch that they were allowed to continue and opened in
1939 (Archway to East Finchley),
1940 (East Finchley to High Barnet) and
1941 (Highgate station). A single track of the LNER line to Edgware was electrified as far as
Mill Hill East in
1941 in order to serve the barracks there, thus forming the Northern Line as it is today. The new train depot at Aldenham had already been built and was used to build
Halifax bombers. Work on the other elements of the plan was suspended.
After the War, the area beyond Edgware was made part of the
Green Belt , and the potential demand for services from Bushey Heath thus vanished. Available funds were directed towards completing the eastern extension of the
Central Line instead, and the Northern Heights plan was dropped. Aldenham depot was converted into a repair facility for buses. The line from Finsbury Park to Muswell Hill and Alexandra Palace via the surface platforms at Highgate was closed to passenger traffic in
1954 . A local pressure group, the Muswell Hill Metro Group, campaigns to reopen this route as a light rail service. So far there is no sign of movement on this issue; the route, now the "Parkland Walk", is highly valued by walkers and cyclists and suggestions in the
1990s that it could, in part, become a road were met with fierce opposition.
The suburban railway heritage of the High Barnet branch beyond Highgate can be seen in the design of the stations.
All Northern line trains consist of
London Underground 1995 Stock and are in the distinctive
London Underground livery of Red, White and Blue. In common with the other deep-level lines the trains are the smaller of the two sizes used on London Underground.
The junctions connecting the two northern branches of the Northern Line to the two central branches are just south of Camden Town station. The station has a pair of platforms on each of the two northern branches, and southbound trains can depart toward either Charing Cross or Bank from either of the two southbound platforms.
''(Also known as the West End branch.)''
Southbound trains on this branch often terminate at Kennington, where they return by means of a loop track.
''(Also known as the City Branch.)''
In
1975 , the Northern City Line, known by that time as the Highbury branch, became part of
British Rail ; it is now served by
First Capital Connect .
In the
1980s and 1990s the line was nicknamed the "Misery Line", though its reputation improved somewhat after the introduction of new rolling stock in the late 1990s.
In
2003 , a train derailed at
Camden Town . This damaged points and signals and the junctions there were not used while repairs were underway — trains coming from Edgware worked the Bank branch only, and trains from High Barnet and Mill Hill East the Charing Cross branch only. This situation was resolved when the junctions reopened, after much repair work and safety analysis and testing, on
7 March 2004 .
A joint report by London Underground and its maintenance contractor
Tubelines concluded that poor track geometry was the main cause, and that, because of the geometry, extra friction arising out of striations (scratches) on a newly installed set of points had allowed the leading wheel of the last carriage to climb the rail and so derail. The track geometry at the derailment site is a very tight bend and tight tunnel bore, which precludes the normal solution for this sort of geometry of canting the track by raising the height of one rail relative to the other.
On
2005 , and full service was restored on
18 October .
In early 2006 the Mayor's office commented that one of the next long-term areas of focus was the expansion of the tube into poorly-served areas of south London. This was given to most likely be a case of:
- Extending the Bakerloo line by reviving the long-delayed intention to extend to Camberwell and beyond.
- Extending the Victoria line from Brixton as it, like the Bakerloo, also has a lot of unused capacity on its southern end.
- Extending the Northern line from Kennington ; this conceivably could also be the development that results in the Northern line splitting into two separate lines, though this would also have as a prequisite the much-maligned redevelopment of Camden Town to improve interchange capacity.
