Reversing loops, 1901 The CLR's ability to manage its high passenger numbers was constrained by the service interval that it could achieve between trains. This was directly related to the time taken to turn around trains at the termini. At the end of a journey, a locomotive had to be disconnected from the leading end of the train and run around to the rear, where it was reconnected before proceeding in the opposite direction; an exercise that took a minimum of 2½ minutes. Seeking to shorten this interval, the CLR published a bill in November 1900 for the 1901 parliamentary session. The bill requested permission to construct loops at each end of the line so that trains could be turned around without disconnecting the locomotive. The loop at the western end was planned to run anti-clockwise under the three sides of Shepherd's Bush Green. For the eastern loop the alternatives were a loop under Liverpool Street station or a larger loop running under Threadneedle Street, Old Broad Street, Liverpool Street,
Bishopsgate and returning to Threadneedle Street. The estimated cost of the loops was £800,000 (approximately £ today), most of which was for the eastern loop with its costly
wayleaves. The CLR bill was one of more than a dozen tube railway bills submitted to Parliament for the 1901 session, To review the bills on an equal basis, Parliament established a joint committee under
Lord Windsor, but by the time the committee had produced its report, the parliamentary session was almost over and the promoters of the bills were asked to resubmit them for the following 1902 session. Among the committee's recommendations were the withdrawal of the CLR's City loop, and that a quick, tube route from
Hammersmith to the City of London would benefit London's commuters.
Loop line, 1902–1905 Rather than resubmit its 1901 bill, the CLR presented a much more ambitious alternative for the 1902 parliamentary session. The reversing loops were dropped, and the CLR instead proposed to turn the whole railway into a single large loop by constructing a new southern route between the two existing end points, adopting the committee's recommendation for a Hammersmith to City route. At the western end, new tunnels were to be extended from the dead-end
reversing siding west of Shepherd's Bush station and from the depot access tunnel. The route was to pass under Shepherd's Bush Green and run under Goldhawk Road as far as Hammersmith Grove where it was to turn south. At the southern end of Hammersmith Grove a station was to be provided on the corner of Brook Green Road (now Shepherd's Bush Road) to provide an interchange with the three stations already located there. From Hammersmith, the CLR's route was to turn eastwards and run under Hammersmith Road and
Kensington High Street with interchange stations at the DR's
Addison Road (now Kensington Olympia) and
High Street Kensington stations. From Kensington High Street, the route was to run along the south side of
Kensington Gardens beneath
Kensington Road,
Kensington Gore and
Knightsbridge. Stations were to be constructed at the
Royal Albert Hall and the junction of Knightsbridge and
Sloane Street, where the
Brompton & Piccadilly Circus Railway (B&PCR) already had permission to build
a station. From Sloane Street, the CLR's proposed route ran below that approved for the B&PCR under the eastern portion of Knightsbridge, under
Hyde Park Corner and along
Piccadilly to
Piccadilly Circus. At Hyde Park Corner, a CLR station was to be sited close to the
B&PCR's station and the CLR's next station at
St James's Street was a short distance to the east of the B&PCR's planned
Dover Street station. At Piccadilly Circus, the CLR planned an interchange with the
partially completed station of the stalled
Baker Street and Waterloo Railway. The CLR route was then to turn south-east beneath
Leicester Square to a station at
Charing Cross and then north-east under
Strand to
Norfolk Street to interchange with the
planned terminus of the
Great Northern & Strand Railway. In late 1902, the PC&NELR plans collapsed after a falling out between the scheme's promoters led to a crucial part of the planned route coming under the control of a rival, the
Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL), which withdrew it from parliamentary consideration. With the PC&NELR scheme out of the way, the CLR resubmitted its bill in 1903, although consideration was again held up by Parliament's establishment of the
Royal Commission on London Traffic tasked to assess the manner in which transport in London should be developed. While the Commission deliberated, any review of bills for new lines and extensions was postponed, so the CLR withdrew the bill. The CLR briefly re-presented the bill for the 1905 parliamentary session but withdrew it again, before making an agreement with the UERL in October 1905 that neither company would submit a bill for an east–west route in 1906. The plan was then dropped as the new trains with driving positions at both ends made it possible for the CLR to reduce the minimum interval between trains to two minutes without building the loop.
Wood Lane, 1906–1908 In 1905, the government announced plans to hold an international exhibition to celebrate the
Entente cordiale signed by France and Britain in 1904. The location of the
Franco-British Exhibition's
White City site was across Wood Lane from the CLR's depot. To exploit the opportunity to carry visitors to the exhibition, the CLR announced a bill in November 1906 seeking to create a loop from Shepherd's Bush station and back, on which a new
Wood Lane station close to the exhibition's entrance would be built. The new work was approved on 1907 in the '''''' (
7 Edw. 7. c. lxxxiii). The new loop was formed by constructing a section of tunnel joining the end of the dead-end reversing tunnel to the west of Shepherd's Bush station and the north side of the depot. From Shepherd's Bush, trains ran anti-clockwise around the single track loop, first through the original depot access tunnel, then passed the north side of the depot and through the new station before entering the new section of tunnel and returning to Shepherd's Bush. Changes were also made to the depot layout to accommodate the new station and the new looped operations. Construction work on the exhibition site had started in January 1907, and the exhibition and new station opened on 1908. The station was on the surface between the two tunnel openings and was a basic design by Harry Bell Measures. It had platforms both sides of the curving track – passengers alighted on to one and boarded from the other (an arrangement now known as the
Spanish solution).
Liverpool Street, 1908–1912 With the extension to Wood Lane operational, the CLR revisited its earlier plan for an eastward extension from Bank to Liverpool Street station. This time, the Great Eastern Railway (GER) agreed to allow the CLR to build a station under its own main line terminus, provided that no further extension would be made north or north-east from there – territory served by the GER's routes from Liverpool Street. A bill was announced in November 1908, for the 1909 parliamentary session and received royal assent as the '''''' (
9 Edw. 7. c. lxxi) on 1909. Construction started in July 1910 and the new
Liverpool Street station was opened on 1912. Following their successful introduction at the DR's
Earl's Court station in 1911, the station was the first underground station in London to be built with escalators. Four were provided, two to Liverpool Street station and two to the
North London Railway's adjacent
Broad Street station.
Ealing Broadway, 1911–1920 The CLR's next planned extension was westward to Ealing. In 1905, the
Great Western Railway (GWR) had obtained parliamentary approval to construct the (E&SBR), connecting its main line route at
Ealing Broadway to the
West London Railway (WLR) north of Shepherd's Bush. From Ealing, the new line was to curve north-east through still mostly rural
North Acton, then run east for a short distance parallel with the GWR's
High Wycombe line, before curving south-east. The line was then to run on an embankment south of
Old Oak Common and
Wormwood Scrubs before connecting to the WLR a short distance to the north of the CLR's depot. Construction work did not begin immediately, and, in 1911, the CLR and GWR agreed
running powers for CLR services over the line to Ealing Broadway. To make a connection to the E&SBR, the CLR obtained parliamentary permission for a short extension northward from Wood Lane station on 1911 in the '''''' (
1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. lxxxiii). The new E&SBR line was constructed by the GWR and opened as a steam-hauled freight only line on 1917. Electrification of the track and the start of CLR services were postponed until after the end of World War I, not starting until 1920 when a single intermediate station at
East Acton was also opened. Wood Lane station was modified and extended to accommodate the northward extension tracks linking to the E&SBR. The existing platforms on the loop were retained, continuing to be used by trains that were turning back to central London, and two new platforms for trains running to or from Ealing were constructed at a lower level on the new tracks, which connected to each side of the loop. Ealing Broadway station was modified to provide additional platforms for CLR use between the existing but separate sets of platforms used by the GWR and the DR. To provide services over the extension, the CLR ordered 24 additional driving motor carriages from the Brush Company, which, when delivered in 1917, were first borrowed by the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway for use in place of carriages ordered for its
extension to Watford Junction. The new carriages were the first for tube-sized trains that were fully enclosed, without gated platforms at the rear, and were provided with hinged doors in the sides to speed-up passenger loading times. To operate with the new stock the CLR converted 48 existing carriages, providing a total of 72 carriages for twelve six-car trains. Modifications made while in use on the Watford extension meant that the new carriages were not compatible with the rest of the CLR's fleet and they became known as the
Ealing stock. The E&SBR remained part of the GWR until nationalisation at the beginning of 1948, when (with the exception of Ealing Broadway station) it was transferred to the
London Transport Executive. Ealing Broadway remained part of
British Railways, as successors to the GWR.
Richmond, 1913 and 1920 In November 1912, the CLR announced plans for an extension from Shepherd's Bush on a new south-westwards route. Tunnels were planned under Goldhawk Road, Stamford Brook Road and Bath Road to Chiswick Common where a turn to the south would take the tunnels under Turnham Green Terrace for a short distance. The route then was to head west again to continue under
Chiswick High Road before coming to the surface east of the
London and South Western Railway's (L&SWR's)
Gunnersbury station. Here a connection would be made to allow the CLR's tube trains to run south-west to
Richmond station over L&SWR tracks that the DR shared and had electrified in 1905. Stations were planned on Goldhawk Road at its junctions with
The Grove,
Paddenswick Road and
Rylett Road, at
Emlyn Road on Stamford Brook Road, at Turnham Green Terrace (for a connection with the L&SWR's/DR's
Turnham Green station) and at the junction of Chiswick High Road and
Heathfield Terrace. Beyond Richmond, the CLR saw further opportunities to continue over L&SWR tracks to the commuter towns of
Twickenham,
Sunbury and
Shepperton, although this required the tracks to be electrified. The CLR received permission for the new line to Gunnersbury on 1913 in the '''''' (
3 & 4 Geo. 5. c. lxxiii), but World War I prevented the works from commencing and the permission expired. In November 1919, the CLR published a new bill to revive the Richmond extension, but using a different route that required only a short section of new tunnel construction. The new proposal was to construct tunnels southwards from Shepherd's Bush station, which would come to the surface to connect to disused L&SWR tracks north of
Hammersmith Grove Road station that had closed in 1916. From Hammersmith, the disused LS&WR tracks continued westwards, on the same viaduct as the DR's tracks through Turnham Green to Gunnersbury and Richmond. The plan required electrification of the disused tracks, but avoided the need for costly tunnelling and would have shared the existing stations on the route with the DR. The plan received assent on 1920 as part of the
Central London and Metropolitan District Railways Companies (Works) Act 1920 (
10 & 11 Geo. 5. c. lxxxii), although the CLR made no attempt to carry out any of the work. The disused L&SWR tracks between
Ravenscourt Park and Turnham Green were eventually used for the westward extension of the
Piccadilly line from Hammersmith in 1932. ==Competition, co-operation and sale, 1906–1913==