page_title: Moorgate station
section_title: 1950 – present
hierarchical_section_title: Moorgate station / History / 1950 – present
caption_attribution_description: English: Historic train at Moorgate Underground Station
context_page_description: Moorgate is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station on Moorgate in the City of London. Main line railway services for Hertford, Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage and Letchworth are operated by Great Northern, while the Underground station is served by the Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan and Northern lines.
  The station was opened as Moorgate Street in 1865 by the Metropolitan Railway. In 1900, the City & South London Railway added the station to its network, and the Great Northern & City Railway began serving the station in 1904. In 1975, the Northern City Line platforms were the site of the Moorgate tube crash – at the time, the worst peacetime accident in the history of the London Underground – in which 43 people were killed. Thameslink branch services were withdrawn in the early 21st century, and Crossrail improvements will see Moorgate connected to Liverpool Street.
context_section_description: British Rail services to Moorgate were initially steam-operated. A commemorative service ran on 6 June 1971 from Moorgate to the depot at Neasden, powered by a 0-6-0 tank locomotive. Steam was replaced by Cravens-built diesel multiple units and British Rail Class 31 locomotives class hauling non-corridor stock which remained in operation until 1976, when it was replaced with British Rail Class 313 electrics.
  The Northern City Line connection for Moorgate to Finsbury Park tube was closed beyond Drayton Park on 5 October 1964 to allow work on the Victoria line. The line never re-opened fully, but instead the line was connected to the Finsbury Park British Rail station, in order to provide a connection for suburban services into Moorgate. The new service opened on 1 September 1968.
  Moorgate station was completely modernised at platform level and street level in the 1960s, and the Widened Lines part of the station was extended to six platforms. The realignment of the platforms enabled about 500 yd (460 m) of the line to Barbican to be straightened and moved south to facilitate development of the Barbican Estate.
  British Rail (Eastern Region) took over control of the Northern City Line from London Underground in 1975, as part of the Great Northern lines suburban electrification. The Highbury Branch of the Northern line was terminated. Services from Finsbury Park to Moorgate were diverted to the Northern City Line from the City Widened Lines the following year. The City Widened Lines were renamed the Moorgate line when overhead electrification was installed in 1982, allowing the Midland City Line service to run from Bedford via the Midland Main Line to Moorgate on the Thameslink service.
  The Moorgate Thameslink branch was reduced to peak hours services only in 2003, and closed permanently on 20 March 2009 as part of the Thameslink Programme upgrades. The closure was required in order to lengthen the platforms at Farringdon to take the longer-carriage trains, which could only be done southward in the direction of Moorgate as there was too steep a gradient to the north.
  Under Crossrail works, the western ticket hall of the scheme's Liverpool Street station will be situated just east of Moorgate station. An interchange will be built, linking the Northern line platforms at Moorgate to the Central line at Liverpool Street via the Crossrail platforms spanning the two.
caption: A heritage Metropolitan steam train at Moorgate station in 2014
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