Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway

Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway

The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway was a railway company established in 1902. It constructed a deep-level underground tube railway in London. When it opened in 1906, the GNP&BR’s line served 22 stations and ran for 14.17 kilometres. Most of the route was in a pair of tunnels, with 1.1 kilometres at the western end constructed above ground. Today the line’s tunnels and stations form the core central section of the London Underground’s PicCadilly line.

About Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway in brief

Summary Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton RailwayThe Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway was a railway company established in 1902. It constructed a deep-level underground tube railway in London. When it opened in 1906, the GNP&BR’s line served 22 stations and ran for 14.17 kilometres. Most of the route was in a pair of tunnels, with 1. 1 kilometres at the western end constructed above ground. Today, the line’s tunnels and stations form the core central section of the London Underground’s PicCadilly line. The company and the rest of the UERL were taken into public ownership in 1933. The Great Northern and Strand Railway was established in 1898 as a tube railway, to run from Wood Green to Stanhope Street, north of the Strand. The GN&SR was backed by the Great Northern Railway, the main line railway operating from King’s Cross station. It was then planned to run south-west through Holloway to King Cross, and then south to Finsbury Park. A power station was planned to be next to the GNR’s tracks at Gillespie Road. When the London County Council planned the construction of Kingsway, Aldwych Street and Kingsway Road was scheduled for demolition so the southern terminus was relocated to the junction of the new roads. The bill was enacted on 1 August 1899 as the Great Strand and Northern Railway Act, 1899, and the northern terminus of the GN&R was at Hammersmith. The line was to run entirely underground between Air Street and the south end of Exhibition Road, South Kensington.

It also incorporated part of a tube route planned by a third company, the District Railway, also known as the Brompton and PiccADilly Circus Railway. In November 1896 notice was published that a private bill was to be presented to Parliament for the construction. The Brompton & PiccAdilly Circus railway Act, 1897, received royal assent on 6 August 1897. The DR planned to ease congestion along its heavily used route by constructing an express line with just a single intermediate station at Charing Cross. It planned to use electricity to operate the trains from a generating station to be built about a mile south of theSouth Kensington terminus on the north bank of the River Thames at Lots Road, West Brompton. Since, like the B&PCR, the DR’s deep tube line would be operated with electric trains, theDR planned to build a generating stations adjacent to its Walham Green station. The Bill received assent as the Metropolitan District Railway Act,. 1897, and it was then enacted as the Brompton &Picadilly Circus Railway Act, 1897 on August 6, 1897. It ran for 17 kilometres between its western terminus at Hammermith and its northernterminus at Finsburys Park. It then went on to connect with the Great Northern and Strand Railway at Wood Green. In September 1898 the GN&SR was announced as aTube railway, to run from Wood Green to Finsbury Park.