page_title: Metropolitan line
section_title: London Transport
hierarchical_section_title: Metropolitan line / History / London Transport
caption_attribution_description: British English: Metropolitan line A Stock at Amersham
context_page_description: The Metropolitan line, colloquially known as the Met, is a London Underground line between Aldgate in the City of London and Amersham and Chesham in Buckinghamshire, with branches to Watford in Hertfordshire and Uxbridge in Hillingdon. Coloured magenta on the tube map, the line is 41.4 miles in length and serves 34 stations. Between Aldgate and Finchley Road the track is mostly in shallow "cut and cover" tunnels, apart from short sections at Barbican and Farringdon stations. The rest of the line is above ground, with a loading gauge of a similar size to those on main lines. Just under 67 million passenger journeys were made on the line in 2011/12.
  The line is one of just two Underground lines to cross the Greater London boundary. It is the only Underground line with an express service at peak times; the resulting longer distance between stations means trains can achieve the system's highest speeds of over 60 miles per hour on some sections.
context_section_description: On 1 July 1933 the Metropolitan was amalgamated with other Underground railways, tramway companies and bus operators to form the London Passenger Transport Board, and a period of rationalisation followed.
  While the Metropolitan was run as an outer suburban route with steam-hauled trains and goods services, the LPTB wished to focus on electrified trains and suburban traffic. Goods services were passed to the London and North Eastern Railway, which also took over the role of providing steam locomotives for trains beyond the end of electrification at Rickmansworth. All services north-west of Aylesbury were withdrawn by 1936 though services returned to Quainton Road between 1943 and 1948.
  The 1930s was a period of rapid growth for the north-western suburbs of London, and LPTB developed ambitious plans to simplify the Metropolitan line and expand capacity. Several stations on the Uxbridge branch were rebuilt, replacing temporary wooden buildings with modernist designs and giving Uxbridge station a new site in the town centre. A major bottleneck in the line, the double-track tunnel from Baker Street to Finchley Road, was bypassed by boring two tube tunnels underneath the Metropolitan tunnels, transferring slow services and the Stanmore branch to the Bakerloo line. (This route was transferred to the Jubilee line in 1979.) In 1936 the line was extended east from Whitechapel to Barking along the tracks of the District line. London Transport inherited a number of incompatible electric multiple units from the railway, including the 1927–33 multiple-unit compartment stock used on routes to Watford and Rickmansworth, and these were refurbished to form a uniform fleet and designated London Underground T Stock. In the 1950s, F Stock trains, with sliding doors under the control of the guard, were transferred from the District line; these mainly worked the semi-fast Harrow and Uxbridge services.
  A major rebuilding of the main line from Wembley Park to Amersham was planned in the 1930s but delayed by the war. The line from Wembley to Harrow was rebuilt immediately after the war and the project was completed from 1956–1962, on a more modest scale than originally planned. Until 1961, passenger trains continued to be attached to a steam locomotive at Rickmansworth to run to Aylesbury. The rebuilding electrified the line from Rickmansworth to Amersham, transferring all Aylesbury services to British Railways. A pair of fast lines was added from Harrow to north of Moor Park by 1962, allowing outer-suburban trains to run fast to Moor Park. Aluminium A stock, originally unpainted, replaced the T stock and locomotive-hauled trains. More A Stock trains were built in 1962–63 to replace the trains on the Uxbridge service, giving the main line a single train type for all services. A Stock was 4-car units that could operate as four- or eight-car trains; normally operated as eight cars, a 4-car unit operated the Chesham shuttle. One person operation of the trains was proposed in 1972, but due to conflict with the trades unions was not introduced on the line until 1986.
caption: A stock at Amersham
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