Hammersmith & City line

The Hammersmith & City line is a subsurface London Underground line. It connects Hammersmith in the west with Barking in the east, running through the northern part of central London. It is coloured salmon pink on the Tube map. It was formerly part of the Metropolitan line and incorporates the oldest underground railway in the world, the section between Paddington and Farringdon, which opened on 10 January 1863.

The original Hammersmith & City line opened on 13 June 1864, although Hammersmith station itself moved to a different location in 1868. With the exception of the two-stop Waterloo & City line and the East London Line (which is now a London Overground service), it has been the least used line on the Underground. It ranks 10th of the 11 lines in passenger numbers. Out of the 29 stations served, 10 have Hammersmith & City line platforms that are wholly or almost wholly below ground, all in cut-and-cover, while those at Paddington, Edgware Road, Farringdon, Barbican and Whitechapel are in cuttings, or under train-sheds but below street level.

Since December 2009 the route between Hammersmith and Edgware Road has been supplemented by the Circle line. With this change, the Hammersmith & City line no longer has any stations unique to it.

History

The current Hammersmith & City line was originally a branch of the Metropolitan line until 1990, though in later years it was usually operated as a separate line, with the sections not used by regular Metropolitan line trains (from Hammersmith to Baker Street and from Liverpool Street to Barking) not included on the main Metropolitan line maps. This is also reflected in the line's use of C Stock as opposed to the A Stock used on the 'main' Metropolitan line.

The name Hammersmith & City derives from the Hammersmith and City Railway (H&CR), the 5 km (3.1 mi) section between Hammersmith (Grove Road) railway station and Westbourne Park that opened in 1864, which was built and operated jointly by the Metropolitan and Great Western Railways until 1868. Though now part of the Underground network, this section is an elevated railway, largely built on brick arches and bridges.

Because the name change of the route to the separate identity of the Hammersmith & City line is relatively recent, there are many stations with tiling or enamel maps that still show that they are served by the Metropolitan line, e.g. Bromley-by-Bow station, shared by the H&C and the District line. The Metropolitan line no longer has any interchange with the District.

Technical information

Trains

All Hammersmith & City line trains are in the distinctive London Underground livery of red, white and blue and are the larger of the two sizes used on the network. These 6-car trains comprise C stock, introduced 1969–70, with a further batch in 1978. The line shares this fleet with the Circle and District (Wimbledon-Edgware Road branch) lines.

LUL says these 40-year-old trains, part of the same fleet that also operates the Circle line, are "in an increasingly poor state",^[2] and they are to be replaced with new seven-car S stock air-conditioned trains from Bombardier Transportation,^[3] with delivery scheduled to begin in 2012 for completion by the end of 2014. In combination with new signalling (see below), this is expected to produce an eventual overall increase in the capacity of the route of up to 65%.^[4]

To accommodate these longer trains (117m long as opposed to 93m for C stock), station platforms are currently being lengthened.^[3]

Depots

There is one depot, Hammersmith,^{map 30} close to Hammersmith station. However, that depot can do only minor work, and other work is carried out at Neasden Depot. There are also sidings at Barking, Farringdon and near High Street Kensington (known as Triangle Sidings) for stabling trains overnight. Trains are also stabled at Lillie Bridge Depot.^{[1]map 31}

Signalling

LUL intends to award a contract in 2012 to build a single signal control centre for the whole of the sub-surface network (Circle, Metropolitan, and Hammersmith & City lines). Some of the existing signalling dates from before the Second World War and it has become unreliable, with replacement components often unavailable. A new system will be installed with automatic train operation (ATO), which it is hoped will be fully working by 2018,^[4] increasing throughput in the central area from 27 trains per hour to 32 trains per hour.^[2]

Map

Map of the line before the new Wood Lane station was added and before Shepherd's Bush (H&C) was renamed Shepherd's Bush Market.

There are intermediate stations on the line that trains can terminate at. These include Edgware Road, Baker Street, King's Cross, Moorgate, Liverpool Street, Aldgate East, Bromley-by-Bow, West Ham, Plaistow and East Ham.

Stations

in order from west to east

Changes in December 2009

Between Hammersmith and Edgware Road, the service has been supplemented by Circle line trains since 13 December 2009, when that route changed from its previous orbital route. This is intended to cause fewer delays since, under the previous Circle line arrangements, one delayed train would affect all following trains. Having a terminus at Edgware Road, rather than the continuous orbital route, will avoid this.

The Hammersmith & City line continues to run as a separate route, with trains running to Barking and Plaistow in the east. The headway on the Hammersmith – Edgware Road leg has been reduced from seven to four minutes by this schedule change,^[5] and the alternation of Hammersmith & City with Circle trains will now provide 12 trains per hour at peak times on this section, doubling the previous frequency.

Maps

References

External links

• "Hammersmith and City line facts". Transport for London. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/modesoftransport/tube/linefacts/?line=hammersmithandcity. Retrieved 11 July 2008. 
• "Hammersmith & City Line". Clive's Underground Line Guides. 14 December 2007. http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/hammersmith.html. Retrieved 11 July 2008.