Jubilee Line Extension
Encyclopedia
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
Jubilee line
Jubilee Line
The Jubilee line is a line on the London Underground , in the United Kingdom. It was built in two major sections—initially to Charing Cross, in central London, and later extended, in 1999, to Stratford, in east London. The later stations are larger and have special safety features, both aspects...
from to through south and east London. An eastward extension of the Jubilee line was first proposed in the 1970s and a modified route was constructed during the 1990s. It opened in stages from the summer to Christmas 1999.
Stations on the Jubilee line extension
The extension begins just south of Green Park, eastward to:| Station | London borough | Infrastructure |
|---|---|---|
| Westminster | new ticket hall and two additional deep-level platforms | |
| Lambeth | two additional deep-level platforms | |
| Southwark | new station with two deep-level platforms | |
| Southwark | two additional deep-level platforms | |
| Southwark | new station with two deep-level platforms | |
| Canada Water | Southwark | new station with two deep-level platforms and two new sub-surface platforms on East London Line East London Line The East London Line is a London Overground line which runs north to south through the East End, Docklands and South areas of London.Built in 1869 by the East London Railway Company, which reused the Thames Tunnel, originally intended for horse-drawn carriages, the line became part of the London... |
| Tower Hamlets | new station with two deep-level platforms | |
| Greenwich | new station with three deep-level platforms | |
| Newham | new station building with two surface platforms and two new elevated platforms on DLR Docklands Light Railway The Docklands Light Railway is an automated light metro or light rail system opened on 31 August 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of London... |
|
| Newham | two additional surface platforms | |
| Newham | new station building and plaza as well as three additional surface platforms |
Before the extension was built, the Jubilee line terminated at . The section of Jubilee line between Charing Cross and is now unused for passenger services but is still maintained for emergency use (and at least one misdirected passenger train has ended up there). The abandoned platforms are occasionally rented out by TfL for use as a film set. This section may be re-used in the future as part of an extension of the Docklands Light Railway
Docklands Light Railway
The Docklands Light Railway is an automated light metro or light rail system opened on 31 August 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of London...
from Bank station.
Original 1970s plans
The construction of the Jubilee line between and had always been intended to be the first phase of the Fleet Line (as the Jubilee line was originally called). In the first version of the Fleet Line Extension plan, the line would run from Charing Cross via and to station, then via the Thames TunnelThames Tunnel
The Thames Tunnel is an underwater tunnel, built beneath the River Thames in London, United Kingdom, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. It measures 35 feet wide by 20 feet high and is 1,300 feet long, running at a depth of 75 feet below the river's surface...
to and Lewisham
Lewisham station
Lewisham station is a National Rail and Docklands Light Railway station in Lewisham, south east London. It is on the south-east London commuter rail network operated by Southeastern. The Docklands Light Railway station opened in 1999 on a southward extension from Island Gardens on the Isle of Dogs...
.
This plan was modified shortly before the Jubilee line was opened in 1979. Under the new plan (and a new name, the River Line), it would instead run via the Isle of Dogs
Isle of Dogs
The Isle of Dogs is a former island in the East End of London that is bounded on three sides by one of the largest meanders in the River Thames.-Etymology:...
and Royal Docks
Royal Docks
The Royal Docks comprise three docks in east London - the Royal Albert Dock, the Royal Victoria Dock and the King George V Dock. They are more correctly called the Royal Group of Docks to distinguish them from the Royal Dockyards, Royal being due to their naming after royal personages rather than...
to the "new town" at Thamesmead
Thamesmead
Thamesmead is a district of south-east London, England, located in the London Boroughs of Greenwich and Bexley. It is situated east of Charing Cross....
. (This route is not dissimilar to the proposed Crossrail
Crossrail
Crossrail is a project to build a major new railway link under central London. The name refers to the first of two routes which are the responsibility of Crossrail Ltd. It is based on an entirely new east-west tunnel with a central section from to Liverpool Street station...
route, which would go through the Docklands in a broadly similar direction.) A short extension was built eastwards from Charing Cross—the Jubilee line tracks actually extend almost as far as Aldwych
Aldwych
Aldwych is a place and road in the City of Westminster in London, England.-Description:Aldwych, the road, is a crescent, connected to the Strand at both ends. At its centre, it meets the Kingsway...
, but work soon ground to a halt, and was abandoned.
Extension
Plans to extend the Jubilee line were revived in the late 1980s, prompted by the creation of the Canary Wharf development, which massively increased the predicted numbers of jobs in the Isle of Dogs and required a transport network with much greater capacity than could be provided by the Docklands Light RailwayDocklands Light Railway
The Docklands Light Railway is an automated light metro or light rail system opened on 31 August 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of London...
(DLR). Initially, Olympia and York
Olympia and York
Olympia & York was once a major international property development firm based in Canada. The firm built major financial office complexes like Canary Wharf in London, the World Financial Center in New York City and First Canadian Place in Toronto...
, the developers of Canary Wharf, proposed building a new line, the Waterloo and Greenwich Railway. This would run from Waterloo through London Bridge to Canary Wharf and then to Westcombe Park
Westcombe Park
This article is about the London district. See Westcombe Park rugby club for details of the rugby club - now based in Orpington.Westcombe Park is a largely residential area in Blackheath in the London Borough of Greenwich, south-east London, England....
in Greenwich, and would cost £400 million. However London Transport resisted this idea, preferring to wait for the results of studies into new railways construction in London. One of these, the East London Railway Study, recommended an extension of the Jubilee line from Green Park to Westminster, then following the route of the Waterloo and Greenwich Railway, before carrying on to Stratford via Canning Town, alongside what was then the North London Line
North London Line
The North London Line is a railway line which passes through the inner suburbs of north London, England. Its route is a rough semicircle from the south west to the north east, avoiding central London. The line is owned and maintained by Network Rail...
. It was this option that was ultimately adopted, with an estimated cost of £2.1 billion to which Olympia and York would make a £400 million contribution, a figure based on the original cost estimate of the Waterloo and Greenwich Railway (Mitchell 2003). In the end the scheme cost £3.5bn, partly because of huge cost overruns during its construction. Where initially the developers were to pay for a large part of the scheme, their final contribution was less than 5%.
The extension was authorised in 1990. A station was originally planned at Blackwall
Blackwall, London
Blackwall is an area of the East End of London, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets on the north bank of the River Thames.The district around Blackwall Stairs was known as Blackwall by at least the 14th century. This presumably derives from the colour of the river wall, constructed in...
, but this option was rejected in favour of taking the line between Canary Wharf and Stratford underneath the Thames again, to serve the Greenwich peninsula
Greenwich Peninsula
Greenwich Peninsula is an area of South London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.The peninsula is bounded on three sides by a loop of the Thames, between the Isle of Dogs and Silvertown. To the south is the rest of Greenwich, to the south-east is Charlton.The peninsula lies...
with station. Plans for the Millennium Dome
Millennium Dome
The Millennium Dome, colloquially referred to simply as The Dome or even The O2 Arena, is the original name of a large dome-shaped building, originally used to house the Millennium Experience, a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium...
did not yet exist, and this diversion was made to provide for a planned housing development on the site of disused gasworks. British Gas plc
British Gas plc
British Gas plc was formerly the monopoly gas supplier and is a private sector in the United Kingdom.- History :In the early 1900s the gas market in the United Kingdom was mainly run by county councils and small private firms...
contributed £25 million to the scheme. The stations at Southwark and Bermondsey were not initially certain. Main works were authorised by the London Underground Act 1992., with additional works allowed by the London Underground (Jubilee) Act 1993.
Construction officially started in December 1993. Construction was originally expected to take 53 months. Tunnelling was delayed after a collapse during the Heathrow Express
Heathrow Express
Heathrow Express is an airport rail link from London Heathrow Airport to London Paddington station in London operated by the Heathrow Express Operating Authority, a wholly owned subsidiary of BAA. It was opened by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998...
project in October 1994, which used the same NATM
New Austrian Tunnelling method
The New Austrian Tunnelling method was developed between 1957 and 1965 in Austria. It was given its name in Salzburg in 1962 to distinguish it from old Austrian tunnelling approach. The main contributors to the development of NATM were Ladislaus von Rabcewicz, Leopold Müller and Franz Pacher...
tunnelling method. By November 1997 a September 1998 date was planned. By June 1998, opening was planned in Spring 1999. By November 1998, a phased opening, previously rejected, was being considered, with the section from Stratford to North Greenwich planned for spring 1999, the section from North Greenwich to Waterloo for summer 1999, and the final section and link into the existing Jubilee line (Waterloo-Green Park) planned for autumn 1999. This phasing with followed, with the first phase opening on May 14, 1999, followed by the second phase on September 24, and the third phase on November 20. The opening of the platforms of Westminster, which was technically complicated due to the interface with the subsurface platforms, which remained in operation, opened on December 22, 1999, shortly before the Millennium Dome
Millennium Dome
The Millennium Dome, colloquially referred to simply as The Dome or even The O2 Arena, is the original name of a large dome-shaped building, originally used to house the Millennium Experience, a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium...
deadline.
The JLE was originally supposed to have moving block signalling, designed by Westinghouse, in order to reach 36 trains per hour at peak times. As design of this over-ran, causing delays into 1999, this was abandoned in favour of more traditional signalling.
It has proved extremely successful both in terms of relieving congestion on the DLR and in opening up access to parts of east London with formerly poor transport links. However, its considerable costs have delayed alternative Underground expansions, such as the long-proposed schemes of Crossrail
Crossrail
Crossrail is a project to build a major new railway link under central London. The name refers to the first of two routes which are the responsibility of Crossrail Ltd. It is based on an entirely new east-west tunnel with a central section from to Liverpool Street station...
and the Chelsea-Hackney Line
Chelsea-Hackney Line
The Chelsea–Hackney line is a safeguarded route for an underground railway running from south-west London to north-east London...
.
Design aspects of the extension
One Canada Square
One Canada Square is a skyscraper in Canary Wharf in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is the tallest completed building in the United Kingdom since 1991, standing at above ground level and containing 50 storeys...
, if laid on its side could fit in the station with room to spare. Similarly, has a dramatic vertical void nearly 40 m (130 ft) deep.
The size of the stations was a response to safety concerns—overcrowding and a lack of exits had been significant factors in the 1987 King's Cross disaster
King's Cross fire
The King's Cross St. Pancras tube station fire was a fatal fire on the London Underground. It broke out at approximately 19:30 on 18 November 1987, and killed 31 people....
—as well as an attempt to "future-proof" stations by designing from the start for a high volume of use. One consequence of this is that most of the extension's platforms and halls are full only in a busy rush hour.
A number of leading architects were employed to design the stations, with the lead being given by Roland Paoletti. It was decided from the outset that although each station would be designed as an individual entity, they would be linked to the others by a common design philosophy and functional elements. Spaciousness was the most noticeable, along with the shared theme of grey and silver polished metal and concrete interiors. More subtly, many of the stations were designed to admit as much natural light as possible. At and to a lesser extent at Canada Water and , rotundas and shafts allow daylight to reach, or nearly reach, the platforms.
The platforms saw another innovation: platform edge doors, to improve airflow in stations. They also prevent passengers from jumping or falling onto the line. The platform doors occasionally malfunction and stay closed when trains arrive, leaving passengers unable to board or disembark at a particular station until the problem has been fixed.
Ground settlement
Interferometric synthetic aperture radar
Interferometric synthetic aperture radar, also abbreviated InSAR or IfSAR, is a radar technique used in geodesy and remote sensing. This geodetic method uses two or more synthetic aperture radar images to generate maps of surface deformation or digital elevation, using differences in the phase of...
) has the unique ability of revealing historical ground motion trends over urban areas. The image over Central London shows historical ground and structure motion over a thirteen-year period (1992 – 2005). A linear pattern of settlement associated with the construction of the Jubilee line extension has been revealed. The image to the right can be viewed as an overlay within Google Earth
Google Earth
Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...
by following this link.
Further reading
- Mitchell, Bob (2003). Jubilee Line Extension: From Concept to Completion. Thomas TelfordThomas TelfordThomas Telford FRS, FRSE was a Scottish civil engineer, architect and stonemason, and a noted road, bridge and canal builder.-Early career:...
.