page_title: Central London Railway
section_title: Reversing loops, 1901
hierarchical_section_title: Central London Railway / Extensions / Reversing loops, 1901
caption_attribution_description: English: Geographic Map of the Central London Railway as planned in 1901.
context_page_description: The Central London Railway, also known as the Twopenny Tube, was a deep-level, underground "tube" railway that opened in London in 1900. The CLR's tunnels and stations form the central section of the London Underground's Central line.
  The railway company was established in 1889, funding for construction was obtained in 1895 through a syndicate of financiers and work took place from 1896 to 1900. When opened, the CLR served 13 stations and ran completely underground in a pair of tunnels for 9.14 kilometres between its western terminus at Shepherd's Bush and its eastern terminus at the Bank of England, with a depot and power station to the north of the western terminus. After a rejected proposal to turn the line into a loop, it was extended at the western end to Wood Lane in 1908 and at the eastern end to Liverpool Street station in 1912. In 1920, it was extended along a Great Western Railway line to Ealing to serve a total distance of 17.57 kilometres.
  After initially making good returns for investors, the CLR suffered a decline in passenger numbers due to increased competition from other underground railway lines and new motorised buses.
context_section_description: The CLR's ability to manage its high passenger numbers was constrained by the service interval that it could achieve between trains. This was directly related to the time taken to turn around trains at the termini. At the end of a journey, a locomotive had to be disconnected from the leading end of the train and run around to the rear, where it was reconnected before proceeding in the opposite direction; an exercise that took a minimum of 2½ minutes. Seeking to shorten this interval, the CLR published a bill in November 1900 for the 1901 parliamentary session. The bill requested permission to construct loops at each end of the line so that trains could be turned around without disconnecting the locomotive. The loop at the western end was planned to run anti-clockwise under the three sides of Shepherd's Bush Green. For the eastern loop the alternatives were a loop under Liverpool Street station or a larger loop running under Threadneedle Street, Old Broad Street, Liverpool Street, Bishopsgate and returning to Threadneedle Street. The estimated cost of the loops was £800,000 (approximately £87.2 million today), most of which was for the eastern loop with its costly wayleaves.
  The CLR bill was one of more than a dozen tube railway bills submitted to Parliament for the 1901 session, To review the bills on an equal basis, Parliament established a joint committee under Lord Windsor, but by the time the committee had produced its report, the parliamentary session was almost over and the promoters of the bills were asked to resubmit them for the following 1902 session. Among the committee's recommendations were the withdrawal of the CLR's City loop, and that a quick, tube route from Hammersmith to the City of London would benefit London's commuters.
caption: Rejected route proposed in 1901
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