We all know the Piccadilly line, right? It's the dark blue Tube line that runs from Cockfosters
to Heathrow Airport and Uxbridge. If you're a regular viewer of this channel, you'll know that
it opened on the 15th of December 1906 and it was originally called the Great Northern, Piccadilly
and Brompton Railway. But that was a mouthful, so everyone called it the Piccadilly Tube.
Ah, but it goes further back than that. You see, the Piccadilly Tube is not one line, but four.
So it all kind of begins in 1890 when the City
and South London Railway opened as the first deep-level underground railway.
This was a success. In fact, much of the original railway forms part of the Northern line today.
As so often happens when a technology turns out to actually work, there was a scramble to jump onto
the bandwagon, and so the 1890s saw what I tend to call the "Tube Mania." Many, many proposals
for new lines were put forward in Parliament. The majority went nowhere, literally or figuratively.
The people proposing them were more interested in making money than actually building a railway,
and it showed. A couple did get built - the Central London Railway and the Waterloo and
City Railway date from this era. There are some that would have failed were it not for this man,
whom regular viewers will recognise as Charles Tyson Yerkes. Yerkes was a deeply
suspect Chicago businessman with an interest in public transport, having made a lot of money in
American streetcar lines. It's funny, when I talk about American lines I always say "streetcars"
instead of "trams" and I don't know why that is, it doesn't make much sense. ANYWAY. The point is
that Yerkes was a greedy businessman out to make his fortune, but unlike the rest, he knew how to
actually get a railway built. So he bought a number of doomed proposals and made them work.
One was the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (now the Bakerloo) and another was the Charing Cross,
Euston and Hampstead railway (now another part of the Northern line). He also acquired three
other doomed proposals and one pretty decent one, which he would rework into the Piccadilly Tube.
I'm going to start, somewhat illogically, with the last one proposed: the Great Northern and
Strand Railway. This was submitted in 1898 and permission was granted by Parliament in 1899.
It would have run from Wood Green (what is now Alexandra Palace station) to Stanhope Street,
near the Strand. This line was actually backed by a main line company, the Great Northern Railway.
The Great Northern ran trains out of King's Cross, but their commuter trains were overcrowded and
their line was congested. The tube line would, they hoped, relieve some of that congestion.
Therefore, the tube was to meet the main line at Wood Green, Hornsey, Harringay,
Finsbury Park, Holloway and King's Cross, plus a stop at York Road. After King's Cross,
it would dive towards the City and West End with stations at Russell Square, Holborn and Strand.
As well as relieving congestion, there was another good reason for following this route. Digging tube
lines was an expensive and often controversial business. The owners of property up above had to
be paid easement, a fee to allow the tube to pass beneath. If you've ever wondered why there are so
many tortuous curves on the Underground, that's why. By following the route of the main line,
the Great Northern and Strand could minimise the amount they had to pay. And speaking of paying,
they couldn't actually raise the capital to get it built, so that, for the time being, was that.
Now we're going to skip back in time just a little to the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus railway.
Authorised in 1897, this was to run from South Kensington to Piccadilly Circus with additional
stations at Brompton Road, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner, Down Street and Dover Street. This
was not actually a new idea by any means. As far back as 1872, different groups of speculators
had tried to get railways built along this route. Opposition had always come from local residents,
who didn't like the idea of their lovely streets being dug up. Deep-level tubes were much less
disturbing, both geographically and emotionally, and so this proposal got a lot further than
the others. That being said, there was a rival proposal called the City and West End Railway,
which would have run from Hammersmith to Cannon Street via Kensington and Piccadilly.
However, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway had an ally: the District Railway. The
District Railway's policy, unlike many Victorian railways, was to cooperate with other companies
for mutual benefit. Unfortunately, the District were not friendly with the Central London Railway,
who were backing the City and West End. It's all so complicated, isn't it? Anyway, the District
had a station in South Kensington, and they could see the potential of having a connection
to a railway into the West End proper. The Brompton and Piccadilly Circus, for their part,
could benefit from the District's connection to the City of London and the suburbs in the west.
Unfortunately, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus also couldn't raise the capital to get their line
built. If it failed, that meant that the City and West End Railway would likely get built instead,
which would potentially put the Central London Railway right in the middle of the District's
turf. Desperate to avoid this, the District bought the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus
Railway out in 1899. But this wasn't the only interest the District had in deep-level tubes.
Their main line, so to speak, ran into the City of London. Part of this was the Circle line, which
they shared with the Metropolitan Railway. It was getting mighty busy. Therefore, they proposed a
new line - a deep-level express tube. This would have run from Mansion House to Earl's Court, with
an intermediate stop at Charing Cross (the station now called Embankment). It was authorized in 1897.
If you know the Underground, you may be wondering what this has to do with the Piccadilly line,
which does not run to Embankment or Mansion House. Well, what's important about this is not where it
would run, but how it would run. The District was steam-powered, which of course would not do
for a deep-level tunnel. They weren't exactly sure how they would power their express line,
but electricity was the most likely motive power. In the Act of Parliament authorising the line,
there was a provision for electrifying the line and, almost as an afterthought. electrifying the
rest of the District Railway as well. This will become significant later. Once the District had
the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway, they decided to merge it with their express line,
which made a lot of sense. They received authorisation for this, but, to be honest,
they seemed more interested in the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus than the express line.
They were all about expanding their market. With that in mind, they applied for permission for
extensions, which was not granted. One was from Brompton Road to Chelsea. Another, which is more
relevant to this video, was from Piccadilly Circus to Russell Square. And... here comes Charlie! I've
been talking a lot about the District expanding and taking railways over, and I might have given
the impression that they were a railway that was doing well financially. They were not.
They had their proposals, but they didn't have the money to do anything with them.
There were other rival schemes afoot. The city and West End Railway was one, and there was
another called the Charing Cross, Hammersmith and District Railway. It was a tense time.
If the District couldn't make their investment pay off, they were potentially ruined - and
things were not looking good. A Parliamentary Select Committee had been set up to wrangle
all the different tube schemes, and the conclusion they came to was that the District's plans were
the least desirable of all the proposals. What they favoured was a line that would run
all the way from the West to North East London, and the District's proposal wasn't it.
The District didn't have money or support, but Yerkes could at least offer money,
and he had the perfect foot in the door. Remember I mentioned that the District had
permission to electrify their railway? Well they had the permission and Yerkes had the know-how.
Or at least, employees who had the know-how. In 1901, he formed the Metropolitan District Electric
Traction Company with the purpose of electrifying the line. Of course, if he was going to electrify
the line, he'd need control of it, and that same year he bought the District out. As for support,
Yerkes and the District had a bit of luck come their way in 1901, when the rival schemes were
late to submit their proposals. This brought Yerkes and co. some time to get their act together
swiftly. They headed north. Remember the Great Northern and Strand Railway? Well of course
you do, it was only like five minutes ago. WELL ANYWAY. Yerkes sweet-talked them into a merger.
It put him in a much stronger position with Parliament to extend the Brompton and Piccadilly
Circus and the Great Northern and Strand could finally get moving with some financial backing.
Unfortunately, the Great Northern Railway, who you may recall had previously been cool
with the Great Northern and Strand, got cold feet. They not only backed out, but demanded
that the line go no further than Finsbury Park lest it endanger their suburban trains.
In 1902, competition in Parliament for the route from Kensington to Central London was
just as fierce. There was the City and West End (again), but this time the Central London
Railway had another line of their own planned - this was the Charing Cross,
Hammersmith and District Railway. There was also the Piccadilly and City Railway,
and an interesting new player had entered the game - London United Electric Railways.
London United were a tram company, and trams had become hugely successful in recent years,
but a lot of their popularity came from the fact that they were cheap and they were
viewed therefore in "certain sections" of society as being low-class and undesirable - certainly
not the sort of thing they wanted in the upmarket streets of Kensington. So getting
into the Underground business was just the thing. LUER planned a line from Barnes to Charing Cross.
They amended this after forming an alliance with another planned line, the Piccadilly, City and
North East London Railway. At Hyde Park Corner, there would be an interchange between the two.
You have to think that London United's scheme was probably quite unnerving for Yerkes.
Remember that the entire basis of his empire was that he had started in trams, then transferred
that expertise into Underground lines, and here was London United planning to do exactly the same.
But the game was shifting in Charles' favour. You may recall that Parliament wanted a line all the
way from the West to the North East of London. Well the London United scheme was two lines.
Close, but, as they say, no cigar. Meanwhile, all Yerkes was asking for was permission for a short
stretch of line from Piccadilly Circus to Holborn to connect two already-authorized lines together
and run them as one. However, just to be sure, Yerkes bought London United in 1902. This became
the fourth contributor to the Piccadilly line scheme. As an added bonus, the man from Chicago
was back in the tram game. In November that year, the plans received approval. The remaining
rivals either collapsed or withdrew, shaking their fists and cursing the name of Yerkes.
And so the Great Northern and Strand, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus, the District express line
and London United Electric Railways, by their Parliamentary powers combined, became the
Piccadilly tube. There was one last addition - an extension to Hammersmith. As the District already
ran there and London United had tramlines there, it was pretty simple to get this one through
Parliament. Now all they had to do was, you know, build it all. In 1906, the line opened and in
1907, the last section was completed. That was the single-stop branch from Holborn to Aldwych,
which was never very popular, but was authorised as part of the Great Northern and Strand. This was
abandoned in 1994, and the station stands as a relic of those precursor railways.
Riding the line today, it's hard to imagine the sheer chaos that led to its construction. The
rivalries, the corporate politics, the aggressive takeovers, the devious dealings and occasionally,
the sheer luck. In time, the Piccadilly line would end up going much further than
even Yerkes anticipated. Why, these days, it's practically respectable.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this quadripartite Tale from the Tube. If you did and your head
isn't spinning from all those different companies and lines,
please do consider leaving a like and perhaps subscribing for more.
I'd like to thank my contributors on Ko-Fi and Patreon, you are the financial backing
to my moribund tube line. And I'll see you all again very soon for another Tale from the Tube.