Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway

original text	https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/Vict/60-61/192/pdfs/ukla_18970192_en.pdf

collapsed	yes

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, England.[1] The GNP&BR was formed through a merger of two older companies, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway (B&PCR) and the Great Northern and Strand Railway (GN&SR). It also incorporated part of a tube route planned by a third company, the District Railway (DR). The combined company was a subsidiary of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL).

The B&PCR and the GN&SR were established in 1896 and 1898 respectively, but construction of both railways was delayed while funding was sought. In 1902 the UERL, which already controlled the DR, took control of both companies and quickly raised the funds, mainly from foreign investors. A number of different routes were planned, but most were rejected by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

When it opened in 1906, the GNP&BR's line served 22 stations and ran for 14.17 km between its western terminus at Hammersmith and its northern terminus at Finsbury Park. A short 720 m branch connected Holborn to the Strand. Most of the route was in a pair of tunnels, with 1.1 km at the western end constructed above ground.[2] Within the first year of opening it became apparent to the management and investors that the estimated passenger numbers for the GNP&BR and the other UERL lines were over-optimistic. Despite improved integration and cooperation with the other tube railways, the GNP&BR struggled financially. In 1933 it and the rest of the UERL were taken into public ownership. Today, the GNP&BR's tunnels and stations form the core central section of the London Underground's Piccadilly line.

Establishment

Origins

Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway, 1896

In November 1896 notice was published that a private bill was to be presented to Parliament for the construction of the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway (B&PCR).[3] The line was planned to run entirely underground between Air Street near Piccadilly Circus and the south end of Exhibition Road, South Kensington. The route was to run beneath Piccadilly, Knightsbridge, Brompton Road and Thurloe Place, with intermediate stations at Dover Street, Down Street, Hyde Park Corner, Knightsbridge and Brompton Road. A short branch to the east of the South Kensington terminus was planned to a depot south of Brompton Road at the end of Yeoman Row. Electricity to operate the trains was to be provided from a generating station to be built about a mile south of the South Kensington terminus on the north bank of the River Thames at Lots Road, West Brompton.[5]

Opening

The official opening of the GNP&BR by David Lloyd George, President of the Board of Trade, took place on 15 December 1906.[52] Progress on the Strand branch was delayed, and it opened in November 1907.[61] From its opening, the GNP&BR was generally known by the abbreviated names Piccadilly Tube or Piccadilly Railway, and the names appeared on the station buildings and on contemporary maps of the tube lines.[62][63]

The railway had stations at:

The service was provided by a fleet of carriages manufactured for the UERL in France and Hungary.[57] These carriages were built to the same design used for the BS&WR and the CCE&HR, and operated as electric multiple unit trains without the need for separate locomotives.

Co-operation and consolidation, 1906–1913

Despite the UERL's success in financing and constructing the railway in only seven years, its opening did not bring the financial success that had been expected. In the Piccadilly Tube's first twelve months of operation it carried 26 million passengers, less than half of the 60 million that had been predicted during the planning of the line.[66] 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.

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 problem was 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 revenues 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.[67]

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.[67]

Move to public ownership, 1923–1933

Despite improvements made 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 (LGOC) since 1912 had enabled the UERL group, through the pooling of revenues, 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.

In an effort to protect the UERL group's income, its chairman Lord Ashfield lobbied 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 London County Councillor (later MP and Minister of Transport) Herbert Morrison, 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.[78] After seven years of false starts, a bill was announced at the end of 1930 for the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board (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.[79]

Legacy

The original GNP&BR route was extended at both ends in the early 1930s. In the north, a new route was constructed to Wood Green, Southgate and Cockfosters. In the west, the extension from Hammersmith approved in 1913 was finally carried out. The extension paralleled the District line's route to Acton and Hounslow, and took over the District line's route to Uxbridge. In 1977, the Hounslow branch was extended to Heathrow Airport. The Strand branch was closed in 1994.[64] Today, the GNP&BR's tunnels form the core of the Piccadilly line's 73.97 km route.[2]

York Road, Down Street and Brompton Road stations were closed in the early 1930s due to low usage,[81] but in the lead-up to World War II the underground passageways at Down Street and Brompton Road were considered useful as protected deep shelters for critical government and military operations. Down Street was fitted out for use by the Railway Executive Committee and the War Cabinet.[82]

References

A "tube" railway is an underground railway constructed in a cylindrical tunnel by the use of a tunnelling shield, usually deep below ground level.^
Length of line calculated from distances given at Clive's Underground Line Guides, Piccadilly line, Layout Clive D. W. Feather, retrieved 21 March 2009^
{{London Gazette |date=20 November 1896 |issue=26796 |pages=6428–6430}}^

Planning the route, 1898–1905

B&PCR bill, 1899

During the progress of their 1896 bills through parliament, the DR and the B&PCR established a relationship through a successful joint campaign of opposition to a competing proposal from the City & West End Railway. This was for a tube railway running from Hammersmith to Cannon Street, which would have duplicated parts of the DR's and the B&PCR's approved routes.[16] In late 1898, this common interest led to the purchase of the B&PCR by the DR. In November 1898[17] a bill for the B&PCR was announced, which sought permission for short extensions at each end of its route: at its eastern end, from Piccadilly Circus to Cranbourn Street and, at the western end, connections between the B&PCR's tunnels and those of the DR's deep tube line.[18] Parliament rejected the eastern extension, but permitted the connection between the two lines and approved a capital injection from the DR into the B&PCR. The bill received royal assent on 9 August 1899 as the (62 & 63 Vict. c. cclxii).[19]

DR and B&PCR bills, 1900

In November 1899, the DR published a notice of a bill for the 1900 parliamentary session. The company was still unable to proceed with the construction of its proposed deep line, and the new bill included provisions for extensions of time for this line and for those of the B&PCR. The bill included construction and operation of the power station at the Lots Road site previously chosen by the B&PCR.[20] The B&PCR also published notice for a bill requesting an extension of time,[21] but this was later withdrawn and the extension request in the DR bill was used.[18] The time extensions were granted in the (63 & 64 Vict. c. cclxxiii), which received assent on 6 August 1900.[22]

B&PCR bill, 1901

In November 1900, the B&PCR published a notice of a bill for the 1901 session, in which it sought permission for two extensions.[23] The first, eastward, took a more northerly route than the rejected 1899 extension to Cranbourn Street: it was to run via Shaftesbury Avenue, Hart Street (now Bloomsbury Way), Bloomsbury Square, Theobalds Road and Rosebery Avenue, to Angel, Islington where it terminated under Islington High Street. Where the line crossed other tube routes, stations were planned: at Cambridge Circus to interchange with the planned CCE&HR, and at Museum Street near to the CLR's recently opened British Museum station.[24] The second extension took the line south-west from South Kensington, via Fulham Road, to connect to the DR's line south of Walham Green station (now Fulham Broadway). The bill also included provisions for the B&PCR to take over responsibility for construction of the section of the DR's deep-level line from South Kensington to Earl's Court, and for a further extension of time.[23]

The opening of the CLR on 30 July 1900 had stimulated interest in underground railways, and the B&PCR's bill was submitted to Parliament at the same time as a large number of other bills for tube lines in the capital.

B&PCR, GN&SR and DR bills, 1902

In November 1901, the B&PCR published details of its bill for the 1902 session. The extension to The Angel was dropped, and a different route eastwards from Piccadilly Circus was planned. Once again this ran to Cranbourn Street, but it continued under Long Acre and Great Queen Street to meet and connect to the GN&SR's tunnels at Little Queen Street (now the northern part of Kingsway) just south of the GN&SR's planned Holborn station. The B&PCR planned stations at Wardour Street, Cranbourn Street and Covent Garden.

At Wardour Street station a branch was to leave the main route and head south-east, to connect to the DR's deep-level line east of its station at Charing Cross. Wardour Street station was planned to have platforms on both branches. The south-west extension to Walham Green was retained with minor alterations. The new route was to branch from the original route east of Brompton Road station, which was to have platforms on both routes. Stations were planned along Fulham Road at its junctions with College Street (now Elystan Street), Neville Street, Drayton Gardens, Redcliffe Gardens, Stamford Bridge and Maxwell Road. The route would interchange with the DR at Walham Green before coming to the surface and running parallel with the DR as far as Parsons Green, beyond which the line was to connect to the DR. The requests for an extension of time and for the powers to build the DR deep-level line from South Kensington to Earl's Court were re-presented. As the B&PCR and the GN&SR were now in common ownership, the bill also sought powers to enable the companies to merge and for the B&PCR to change its name.[29]

At the same time, the GN&SR published details of its bill for the 1902 session. The GN&SR sought powers for a short extension of about 350 m from its southern terminus, to

GNP&BR and DR bills, 1903

In November 1902, the newly merged company announced two bills for the 1903 parliamentary session under the GNP&BR name.[37][38] The first bill requested minor powers which included the purchase of additional land for stations, and sought minor amendments to previous Acts.

The second bill sought permission for extensions east and west from the approved route. The eastern extension was to diverge from the main route immediately west of Piccadilly Circus station, which was to be expanded to have east and westbound platforms on both lines. The extension was then to pass under Leicester Square to a station at Charing Cross. Continuing eastwards under Strand, the tunnels were to cross under the branch from Holborn, with an interchange at Strand station. The line was then to continue under Fleet Street to Ludgate Circus, where a station was to be constructed to interchange with the London, Chatham and Dover Railway's Ludgate Hill station (since demolished). It would then proceed south under New Bridge Street, and east under Queen Victoria Street, to connect to the DR's proposed deep-level line west of Mansion House station.[39] The western extension was to diverge from the approved route at Albert Gate, east of Knightsbridge station. This station was to have additional platforms on the new branch line which would head west under

GNP&BR bills, 1905

The royal commission investigations continued from 1903 to early 1905, concluding with the issue of a report in June 1905.[45] No bills were submitted for the 1904 parliamentary session, but in November 1904 the GNP&BR announced two bills for the 1905 session.[46][47]

The first dealt with the Strand branch: it confirmed the layout of the junction between the branch and the main route at Holborn, and sought powers to extend the branch south under the River Thames to the London and South Western Railway's (L&SWR's) terminus at Waterloo station. The extension included moving Strand station to the corner of Surrey Street, and constructing a single tunnel from there to the BS&WR's Waterloo station which would be provided with additional lifts to serve the GNP&BR's platforms. The branch was to be operated as a shuttle with trains passing at Strand station.[48] The junction layout and short extension to re-site Strand station were permitted, but not the extension to Waterloo.[49]

status
short title	Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway Act 1897
type	Act
parliament	Parliament of the United Kingdom
long title	An Act for incorporating the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway Company and for empowering them to construct an Underground Railway from Piccadilly Circus to South Kensington and for other purposes.
year	1897
citation	60 & 61 Vict. c. cxcii
royal assent	6 August 1897

Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway

Establishment

Origins

Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway, 1896

Opening

Co-operation and consolidation, 1906–1913

Move to public ownership, 1923–1933

Legacy

References

District Railway deep-level tube, 1896

Great Northern and Strand Railway, 1898

Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway, 1896

District Railway deep-level tube, 1896

Great Northern and Strand Railway, 1898

Search for finance, 1896–1903

Planning the route, 1898–1905

B&PCR bill, 1899

DR and B&PCR bills, 1900

B&PCR bill, 1901

B&PCR, GN&SR and DR bills, 1902

GNP&BR and DR bills, 1903

GNP&BR bills, 1905

B&PCR bill, 1899

DR and B&PCR bills, 1900

B&PCR bill, 1901

B&PCR, GN&SR and DR bills, 1902

GNP&BR and DR bills, 1903

GNP&BR bills, 1905

Construction, 1902–1906