The Central London Railway (CLR), also known as the Twopenny Tube, was a deep-level, underground "tube" railwayA "tube" railway is an underground railway constructed in a cylindrical tunnel by the use of a tunnelling shield, usually deep below ground level. Contrast "cut and cover" tunnelling. that opened in London in 1900. The CLR's tunnels and stations form the central section of what became London Underground's Central line.
The railway company was established in 1889, funding for construction was obtained in 1895 through a syndicate of financiers and work took place from 1896 to 1900. When opened, the CLR served 13 stations and ran completely underground in a pair of tunnels for between its western terminus at Shepherd's Bush and its eastern terminus at the Bank of England, with a depot and power station to the north of the western terminus.Length of line calculated from distances given at After a rejected proposal to turn the line into a loop, it was extended at the western end to Wood Lane in 1908 and at the eastern end to Liverpool Street station in 1912. In 1920, it was extended along a Great Western Railway line to Ealing to serve a total distance of .
After initially making good returns for investors, the CLR suffered a decline in passenger numbers due to increased competition from other underground railway lines and new motorised buses. In 1913, it was taken over by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL), operator of the majority of London's underground railways. In 1933 the CLR was taken into public ownership along with the UERL.
Establishment
Origin, 1889–1892
In November 1889, the CLR published a notice of a private bill that would be presented to Parliament for the 1890 parliamentary session. The bill proposed an underground electric railway running from the junction of Queen's Road (now Queensway) and Bayswater Road in Bayswater to King William Street in the City of London with a connection to the then-under construction, City and South London Railway (C&SLR) at Arthur Street West. The CLR was to run in a pair of tunnels under Bayswater Road, Oxford Street, New Oxford Street, High Holborn, Holborn, Holborn Viaduct, Newgate Street, Cheapside, and Poultry. Stations were planned at Queen's Road, Stanhope Terrace, Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road, Southampton Row, Holborn Circus, St. Martin's Le Grand and King William Street.
The tunnels were to be in diameter, constructed with a tunnelling shield, and would be lined with cast iron segments. At stations, the tunnel diameter would be or depending on layout. A depot and power station were to be constructed on a site on the west side of Queen's Road. Hydraulic lifts from the street to the platforms were to be provided at each station.
The proposals faced strong objections from the Metropolitan and District railways (MR and DR) whose routes on the Inner Circle,The Inner Circle (now the Circle line) was a sub-surface loop line operated jointly by the MR and the DR. to the north and the south respectively, the CLR route paralleled; and from which the new line was expected to take passengers. The City Corporation also objected, concerned about potential damage to buildings close to the route caused by subsidence as was experienced during the construction of the C&SLR. The Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral objected, concerned about the risks of undermining the cathedral's foundations. Sir Joseph Bazalgette objected that the tunnels would damage the city's sewer system. The bill was approved by the House of Commons, but was rejected by the House of Lords, which recommended that any decision be postponed until after the C&SLR had opened and its operation could be assessed.
In November 1890, with the C&SLR about to start operating, the CLR announced a new bill for the 1891 parliamentary session. The route was extended at the western end to run under Notting Hill High Street (now Notting Hill Gate) and Holland Park Avenue to end at the eastern corner of Shepherd's Bush Green, with the depot and power station site relocated to be north of the terminus on the east side of Wood Lane. The westward extension of the route was inspired by the route of abandoned plans for the London Central Subway, a sub-surface railway that was briefly proposed in early 1890 to run directly below the roadway on a similar route to the CLR. The eastern terminus was changed to Cornhill and the proposed Southampton Row station was replaced by one in Bloomsbury. Intermediate stations were added at Lansdowne Road, Notting Hill Gate, Davies Street (which the CLR planned to extend northwards to meet Oxford Street) and at Chancery Lane. The earlier plan to connect to the C&SLR was dropped and the diameter of the CLR's tunnels was increased to . This time the bill was approved by both Houses of Parliament and received royal assent on 1891 as the (54 & 55 Vict. c. cxcvi). In November 1891, the CLR publicised another bill. The eastern end of the line was re-routed north-east and extended to end under the Great Eastern Railway's (GER's) terminus at Liverpool Street station with the Cornhill terminus dropped and a new station proposed at the Royal Exchange. The proposals received assent as the (55 & 56 Vict. c. ccxli) on 1892.
The money to build the CLR was obtained through a syndicate of financiers including Ernest Cassel, Henry Oppenheim, Darius Ogden Mills, and members of the Rothschild family. On 1894, the syndicate incorporated a contractor to construct the railway, the Electric Traction Company Limited (ETCL), which agreed a construction cost of £2,544,000 (approximately £ today) plus £700,000 in 4 per cent debenture stock. When the syndicate offered 285,000 CLR company shares for sale at £10 each in June 1895, only 14 per cent was bought by the British public, which was cautious of such investments following failures of similar railway schemes. Some shares were sold in Europe and the United States, but the unsold remainder was bought by members of the syndicate or by the ETCL.
Construction, 1896–1900 To design the railway, the CLR employed the engineers James Henry Greathead, Sir John Fowler, and Sir Benjamin Baker. Greathead had been the engineer for the Tower Subway and the C&SLR, and had developed the tunnelling shield used to excavate those companies' tunnels under the River Thames. Fowler had been the engineer on the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground railway opened in 1863, and Baker had worked on New York's elevated railways and on the Forth Railway Bridge with Fowler. Greathead died shortly after work began and was replaced by Basil Mott, his assistant during the construction of the C&SLR. Horace Field Parshall was the consulting engineer and designer for the electrification system, including the generating plant and locomotives.
Like most legislation of its kind, the Central London Railway Act 1891 imposed a time limit for the compulsory purchase of land and the raising of capital.Time limits were included in such legislation to encourage the railway company to complete the construction of its line as quickly as possible. They also prevented unused permissions acting as an indefinite block to other proposals. The original date specified for completion of construction was the end of 1896, but the time required to raise the finance and purchase station sites meant that construction had not begun by the start of that year. To give itself extra time, the CLR had obtained an extension of time to 1899 by the (57 & 58 Vict. c. lvii). Construction works were let by the ETCL as three sub-contracts: Shepherd's Bush to Marble Arch, Marble Arch to St Martin's Le Grand and St Martin's Le Grand to Bank. Work began with demolition of buildings at the Chancery Lane site in April 1896 and construction shafts were started at Chancery Lane, Shepherd's Bush, Stanhope Terrace and Bloomsbury in August and September 1896.
Negotiations with the GER for the works under Liverpool Street station were unsuccessful, and the final section beyond Bank was only constructed for a short distance as sidings. To minimise the risk of subsidence, the routing of the tunnels followed the roads on the surface and avoided passing under buildings. Usually the tunnels were bored side by side below the surface, but where a road was too narrow to allow this, the tunnels were aligned one above the other, so that a number of stations have platforms at different levels. To assist with the deceleration of trains arriving at stations and the acceleration of trains leaving, station tunnels were located at the tops of slight inclines.
Tunnelling was completed by the end of 1898, and, because a planned concrete lining to the cast iron tunnel rings was not installed, the internal diameter of the tunnels was generally . For Bank station, the CLR negotiated permission with the City Corporation to construct its ticket hall beneath a steel framework under the roadway and pavements at the junction of Threadneedle Street and Cornhill. This involved diverting pipework and cables into ducts beneath the subways linking the ticket hall to the street. Delays on this work were so costly that they nearly bankrupted the company. A further extension of time to 1900 was obtained through the (62 & 63 Vict. c. clxxxv).
Apart from Bank, which was completely below ground, all stations had buildings designed by Harry Bell Measures. They were single-storey structures to allow for future commercial development above and had elevations faced in beige terracotta. Each station had lifts manufactured by the Sprague Electric Company in New York. The lifts were provided in a variety of sizes and configurations to suit the passenger flow at each station. Generally they operated in sets of two or three in a shared shaft. Station tunnel walls were finished in plain white ceramic tiles and lit by electric arc lamps. The electricity to run the trains and the stations was supplied from the power station at Wood Lane at 5,000V AC which was converted at sub-stations along the route to 550V DC to power the trains via a third rail system.
Opening
The official opening of the CLR by the Prince of Wales took place on 1900, one day before the time limit of the 1899 Act, although the line did not open to the public until 1900. The railway had stations at: Shepherd's Bush Holland Park Notting Hill Gate Queen's Road (now Queensway) Lancaster Gate Marble Arch Bond Street (opened 1900) Oxford Circus Tottenham Court Road British Museum (closed 1933) Chancery Lane Post Office (now St. Paul's) Bank
The CLR charged a flat fare of two pence for a journey between any two stations, leading the Daily Mail to give the railway the nickname of the Twopenny Tube in August 1900. The service was very popular, and, by the end of 1900, the railway had carried 14,916,922 passengers. By attracting passengers from the bus services along its route and from the slower, steam-hauled, MR and DR services, the CLR achieved passenger numbers around per year in the first few years of operation, generating a high turnover that was more than twice the expenses. From 1900 to 1905, the company paid a dividend of 4 per cent to investors.
Rolling stock