page_title: Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway
section_title: Construction, 1902–1906
hierarchical_section_title: Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway / Establishment / Construction, 1902–1906
caption_attribution_description: The glorious red-tiled frontage of Russell Square station on the Piccadilly line
context_page_description: The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway, also known as the Piccadilly tube, was a railway company established in 1902 that constructed a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London. The GNP&BR was formed through a merger of two older companies, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway and the Great Northern and Strand Railway. It also incorporated part of a tube route planned by a third company, the District Railway. The combined company was a subsidiary of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London.
  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 Parliament.
  When it opened in 1906, the GNP&BR's line served 22 stations and ran for 14.17 kilometres between its western terminus at Hammersmith and its northern terminus at Finsbury Park. A short 720-metre branch connected Holborn to the Strand.
context_section_description: With the funds available from the UERL, construction began in July 1902 at Knightsbridge, before the formal approval of the merger of the B&PCR and GN&SR. Messrs Walker, Price & Reeves was the main contractor appointed for the line's construction, with the exception of Messrs Walter Scott & Middleton in charge of the portal at Barons Court. Work proceeded quickly, enabling the UERL to record in its annual report in October 1904 that 80 per cent of the tunnels had been completed and that track laying was about to begin. Stations were provided with surface buildings designed by architect Leslie Green in the UERL house-style. This consisted of two-storey steel-framed buildings faced with dark oxblood red glazed terracotta blocks, with wide semi-circular windows on the upper floor. Except for Finsbury Park, where the platforms were close enough to the surface to be accessed by stairs, and Gillespie Road where a long ramp was used, each of the stations with platforms in tube tunnels was provided with between two and four lifts and an emergency spiral staircase in a separate shaft.
  The existing DR section between West Kensington and Hammersmith was widened in 1905 to accommodate the new tracks for the GNP&BR. Works on the main route were largely complete by the Autumn of 1906, and after a period of test running the railway was ready to open in December 1906. As a result of the electrification and resignalling of the DR's surface and sub-surface tracks in 1905, the capacity of the existing route was sufficiently increased that the construction of deep-level tunnels east of South Kensington was unnecessary, and the powers were allowed to lapse.
caption: Russell Square station, an example of the Leslie Green design used for the GNP&BR's stations
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