The implemented service from High Barnet branch gave good access both to the West End and the City. This appears to have undermined traffic on the Alexandra Palace branch, still run with steam haulage to Kings Cross via Finsbury Park, as Highgate (low-level) was but a short bus ride away and car traffic was much lighter than it would become later. Consequently, the line from Finsbury Park to Muswell Hill and Alexandra Palace via the surface platforms at Highgate was closed altogether to passenger traffic in 1954. This contrasts with the decision to electrify the Epping-Ongar branch of the Central line, another remnant of the New Works programme, run as a tube-train shuttle from 1957. 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. Another pressure group has proposed using the track bed further north, as part of the North and West London Light Railway. The connection between Drayton Park and the surface platforms at Finsbury Park was opened in 1976, when the Northern City Line became part of British Rail.
In 1975, the Northern City Line, known by that time as the Highbury branch, was transferred from London Underground to British Rail; it is now served by Great Northern. In the past, before the introduction of the 1995 stock, the Northern line was sometimes nicknamed the "Misery Line" in the press because of its perceived unreliability.
In 2003, a train derailed at Camden Town. Although no one was hurt, points, signals and carriages were damaged, and the junctions there were not used while repairs were under way: trains coming from Edgware worked the Bank branch only, and trains from High Barnet and Mill Hill East worked the Charing Cross branch only. This situation was resolved when the junctions reopened, after much repair work and safety analysis and testing by contractor, on 7 March 2004.
On 7 July 2005 a defective train on the Northern line (causing its subsequent suspension) saved a Northern line train from being blown up as part of a terrorist attack on the London Underground and bus systems. Three trains on the Circle and Piccadilly lines were blown up. The Northern line bomber-to-be instead boarded a bus, which he later blew up.
On 13 October 2005 the Northern line service was suspended due to maintenance problems with the emergency braking system on the entire train fleet. A series of rail replacement buses was used to connect outlying stations with other Underground lines. Full service was restored on 18 October.
From June 2006, the service between East Finchley and Camden Town was suspended for two non-consecutive weekends every month, with service on the Edgware branch suspended for the other two weeks. This was part of Tube Lines's redevelopment of some Edgware and High Barnet Branch stations, including replacement of track, signals, as well as station maintenance. This included refurbishment of all High Barnet branch stations from West Finchley to Camden Town. In October 2006, off-peak service between Mill Hill East and Finchley Central was cut back to a shuttle, except for a few weekend through trains.
On 13 August 2010, a defective rail maintenance train caused disruption on the Charing Cross branch, after it travelled four miles in 13 minutes without a driver. The train was being towed to the depot after becoming faulty. At Archway station, the defective train became detached and ran driverless until coming to a stop at an incline near Warren Street station. This caused morning rush-hour services to be suspended on this branch. All passenger trains were diverted via the Bank branch, with several not stopping at stations until they were safely on the Bank branch.
The Northern line was originally scheduled to switch to automatic train operation in 2012, using the same SelTrac S40 system as used since 2009 on the Jubilee line and for a number of years on the Docklands Light Railway. Originally the work was to follow on from the Jubilee line so as to benefit from the experience of installing it there, but that project was not completed until spring 2011. Work on the Northern line was contracted to be completed before the 2012 Olympics. It is now being undertaken in-house, and TfL predicted the upgrade would be complete by the end of 2014. The first section of the line (West Finchley to High Barnet) was transferred to the new signalling system on 26 February 2013 and the line became fully automated on 1 June 2014 with the Chalk Farm to Edgware via Golders Green section being the last part of the line to switch to ATO.
Circle Line
Circle Line can mean:
Circle line (London Underground)
The Circle line, coloured yellow on the tube map, is the eighth busiest line on the London Underground. It forms a loop line around the centre of London on the north side of the River Thames. Platforms are 120 metres long in the south and 130 metres long on the part of the track shared with the Metropolitan line.
In 1863 the Metropolitan Railway opened in London between Paddington and Farringdon. It was the world's first underground railway. It connected the Great Western Railway's relatively remote terminus at Paddington with Euston and King's Cross stations and the City, London's financial heart. In the same year a report recommended an 'inner circle' of railway lines between the London termini that had been built or were under construction. In the next year the Metropolitan District Railway (commonly known as the District Railway) was formed to build and operate a railway from South Kensington to Tower Hill. The Metropolitan western extension opened in 1868 from a new station at Paddington to South Kensington. By May 1870 the District railway had opened its line from West Brompton to Blackfriars via Gloucester Road and South Kensington, services being operated at first by the Metropolitan. In 1871 the District had built a terminus at Mansion House, and on 18 November 1876 the Met opened its terminus at Aldgate. Due to conflict between the two companies it took an Act of Parliament before further work was done on the inner circle. In 1882 the Metropolitan extended its line from Aldgate to a temporary station at Tower Hill and the District completed its line to Whitechapel. On 6 October 1884 the temporary station was replaced with a joint station and the inner circle was complete. The Metropolitan provided the clockwise or 'outer rail' trains, the District the 'inner rail' or anti-clockwise.
As well as the inner circle, other routes circumnavigated London, although these were not complete loops. From 1872 the L&NWR began an "outer circle" service from Broad Street to Mansion House via Willesden Junction and Earl's Court, diverting an earlier service that had run to Victoria; and the GWR began a "middle circle" service from Moorgate to Mansion House via Latimer Road and Earl's Court. Both of these routes were cut back to Earl's Court: the "middle circle" in 1900 and the "outer circle" in 1909. The GWR service survived as a shuttle service from the Hammersmith & City line to Addison Road, now Kensington (Olympia), until 1940.
The Midland Railway briefly ran a "super outer circle" from St Pancras to Earl's Court from 1878 to 1880. Today London Overground runs services between Clapham Junction, Willesden Junction and Dalston Junction and between Dalston Junction and Clapham Junction.