Alperton tube station

Alperton London Underground

Station building
Alperton
Location of Alperton in Greater London
Location Alperton
Local authority London Borough of Brent
Managed by London Underground
Number of platforms 2
Fare zone 4
London Underground annual entry and exit
2011 Increase 2.95 million[1]
2012 Decrease 2.89 million[1]
2013 Increase 2.96 million[1]
2014 Increase 3.17 million[1]
Railway companies
Original company District Railway
Key dates
28 June 1903 Opened as Perivale-Alperton
7 October 1910 Renamed Alperton
4 July 1932 District line service replaced by Piccadilly line
Other information
Lists of stations
London Transport portalCoordinates: 51°32′27″N 0°17′59″W / 51.5408°N 0.2997°W / 51.5408; -0.2997

Alperton is a London Underground station on the Uxbridge branch of the Piccadilly line.[2] The station is between Sudbury Town and Park Royal, in Travelcard Zone 4.[2] It is located on Ealing Road (A4089 road) a short distance from the junction with Bridgewater Road (A4005) and is close to Alperton Bus Garage and the Paddington branch of the Grand Union Canal. The station was refurbished in 2006.[3]

History

Perivale Alperton was opened on 28 June 1903 by the District Railway (DR, now the District line) on its new extension to South Harrow on electrified tracks from Park Royal & Twyford Abbey.[4][5] Park Royal & Twyford Abbey had itself opened five days earlier.[5] This new extension was, together with the existing tracks back to Acton Town, the first section of the Underground's surface lines to be electrified and operate electric instead of steam trains.[4] The deep-level tube lines open at that time (City & South London Railway, Waterloo & City Railway and Central London Railway) had been electrically powered from the start.

The station was subsequently renamed Alperton on 7 October 1910.[5]

On 4 July 1932, the Piccadilly line was extended to run west of its original terminus at Hammersmith sharing the route with the District line[note 1] to Ealing Common.[6] From Ealing Common to South Harrow, the District line service was replaced by the Piccadilly line.[4][5][6]

Incidents and accidents

On 2 March 1944 during the Second World War, bomb damage prevented through services to and from Uxbridge for five days.[7]

Design

The original station building was a modest timber framed structure built in 1910.[8] In 1930 and 1931, this was demolished and replaced by a new station in preparation for the handover of the branch from the District line to the Piccadilly line. The new station was designed by Charles Holden in a modern European style using brick, reinforced concrete and glass.[8] Like other stations such as Sudbury Town and Sudbury Hill to the north and others that Holden designed elsewhere, and also for the east and west Piccadilly line extensions such as Acton Town and Oakwood, Alperton station features a tall block-like ticket hall rising above a low horizontal structure that contains station offices and shops. The brick walls of the ticket hall are punctuated with panels of clerestory windows and the structure is capped with a flat concrete slab roof.

Alperton formerly shared with Greenford (on the Central line) the distinction of being one of the only two stations to have an escalator going up to the platforms.[note 2] The escalator served the eastbound platform and had originally been used at the South Bank exhibition of the Festival of Britain.[10] Now out of use, the escalator remains in place behind a wall.[11]

Services and connections

Services

Train frequencies vary throughout the day, but generally operate every 9-13 minutes between 05:58 and midnight in both directions.[12][13]

During disruption on the District Line, Piccadilly Line trains have sometimes been used to provide a service to Ealing Broadway, either by diverting some trains bound for Rayners Lane and Uxbridge, or as a shuttle from Acton Town.[6] Trains may also run along the District Line tracks from Hammersmith to Acton Town in order to serve those stations with no platforms on the Piccadilly Line.[6]

Connections

London Bus routes 79, 83, 224, 245, 297 and 487 serve the station.[14] Additionally, bus routes 83 and 297 provide a 24-hour bus service.[14]

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ↑ The Piccadilly line uses the centre pair of tracks while the District line uses the outer pair of tracks.[4] At Acton Town, the District and Piccadilly lines use separate platforms. Also, the District and Piccadilly lines join back west of Acton Town towards Ealing Broadway/Uxbridge.
  2. ↑ Greenford had the wooden up escalators, which was removed in 2014 to fit in new inclined lifts for step-free access.[9] The left staircase will be replaced by an up escalator.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Multi-year station entry-and-exit figures" (XLS). London Underground station passenger usage data. Transport for London. June 2015. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  2. 1 2 Transport for London (January 2016). Standard Tube Map (PDF) (Map). Not to scale. Transport for London. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 January 2015.
  3. ↑ "Station Refurbishment Summary" (PDF). London Underground Railway Society. July 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 July 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Feather, Clive. "District line". Clive's Underground Line Guides. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Rose, Douglas (1999). The London Underground, A Diagrammatic History. Douglas Rose/Capital Transport. ISBN 1-85414-219-4.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Feather, Clive. "Piccadilly line". Clive's Underground Line Guides. Archived from the original on 27 December 2014.
  7. ↑ "The Underground at War". Nick Cooper. 2010. Archived from the original on 28 April 2015.
  8. 1 2 Alperton - Modernism in Metro-Land
  9. 1 2 "Step-free access for Greenford Tube". Transport for London. September 2013. Archived from the original on 29 March 2015. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  10. ↑ "caption to picture of escalator". Photographic Archive. London Transport Museum. Archived from the original on 25 February 2014.
  11. ↑ Feather, Clive. "Vertical Transport - Escalators". Clive's Underground Line Guides. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014.
  12. ↑ "Piccadilly line timetable: From Alperton Underground Station to Park Royal Underground Station". Transport for London. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  13. ↑ "Piccadilly line timetable: From Alperton Underground Station to Sudbury Town Underground Station". Transport for London. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  14. 1 2 "Buses from Alperton" (PDF). Transport for London. 17 November 2012. Retrieved 29 March 2015.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alperton tube station.
Preceding station   London Underground   Following station
Piccadilly line
towards Cockfosters
  Former services  
Preceding station   London Underground   Following station
District line
(1903-1931)
towards Upminster
District line
(1931-1932)
towards Upminster
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, September 11, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.