Shepherd's Bush tube station (Central Line)
Encyclopedia
Shepherd's Bush is a London Underground
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...

 station in the district of Shepherd's Bush
Shepherd's Bush
-Commerce:Commercial activity in Shepherd's Bush is now focused on the Westfield shopping centre next to Shepherd's Bush Central line station and on the many small shops which run along the northern side of the Green....

, which is located in west London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, United Kingdom. The station is on the Central Line
Central Line
The Central line is a London Underground line, coloured red on the tube map. It is a deep-level "tube" line, running east-west across London, and, at , has the greatest total length of track of any line on the Underground. Of the 49 stations served, 20 are below ground...

, between and stations, and it lies in Travelcard Zone 2
Travelcard Zone 2
Fare zone 2 is an inner zone of Transport for London's zonal fare system used for calculating the price of tickets for travel on the London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway and, since 2007, on National Rail services.-Background:...

.

The station originally opened in 1900, but was closed for eight months in 2008 while the surface station building was replaced with a completely new structure and the underground station refurbished.

A number of stations in the area both past and present have borne the name Shepherd's Bush; today the Central Line station shares its name with the adjacent London Overground
London Overground
London Overground is a suburban rail network in London and Hertfordshire. It has been operated by London Overground Rail Operations since 2007 as part of the National Rail network, under the franchise control and branding of Transport for London...

  station, with which it shares a surface-level interchange.

An entirely separate London Underground station, on the Circle Line and Hammersmith & City Lines is located approximately 1/3 mi away. Until 2008, it too was called Shepherd's Bush until it was renamed to avoid confusion.

History

The station opened on 30 July 1900 and was the original western terminus of the Central London Railway
Central London Railway
The Central London Railway , also known as the Twopenny Tube, was a deep-level, underground "tube" railway that opened in London in 1900...

 (CLR). The original surface-level station building was a terracotta-clad ticket hall with its entrance on the Uxbridge Road
Uxbridge Road
Uxbridge Road is the name of the A4020 road in London. It starts at Shepherd's Bush Green and goes west towards Uxbridge. It passes through Acton, Ealing Broadway and Hanwell....

 facing Shepherd's Bush Green. Like all CLR stations, the station building was designed by Harry Bell Measures
Harry Bell Measures
Harry Bell Measures was an English architect.He had a varied career. From 1884 - 1892 he was in-house architect for William Willett producing high quality housing for the well-heeled in London and South East England; these were normally in the an ornate red brick Queen Anne style which was...

.

To the north of the station was located the CLR's power station
Power station
A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....

 and Wood Lane depot which was originally accessed by a single track tunnel. The eastbound tunnel ended to the west of the station in a dead-end reversing siding with a cross-over junction connecting it to the westbound tunnel. When the now disused Wood Lane
Wood Lane (Central Line) tube station
Wood Lane tube station is a disused station on the Central Line of the London Underground. It was built to serve the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908 and the 1908 Summer Olympics....

 station was opened on 14 May 1908 to the north, a loop tunnel was created connecting to the eastbound tunnel.

An extension to Richmond planned in 1920 would have started here with the next stop at the closed London and South Western Railway
London and South Western Railway
The London and South Western Railway was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Its network extended from London to Plymouth via Salisbury and Exeter, with branches to Ilfracombe and Padstow and via Southampton to Bournemouth and Weymouth. It also had many routes connecting towns in...

 station at Hammersmith (Grove Road); the work was never carried out. As part of London Transport's New Works Programme, 1935 - 1940
New Works Programme
The "New Works Programme, 1935 - 1940" was the major investment programme delivered by the London Passenger Transport Board , commonly known as London Transport, which had been created in 1933 to coordinate underground train, tram, trolleybus and bus services in the capital and the surrounding areas...

, escalators were installed to replace the original lifts and in 1938, the platforms were lengthened along with those of the other existing Central line stations to accommodate eight cars instead of the previous seven.

Westfield redevelopment

A large-scale redevelopment began in 2005 to redevelop the White City
White City, London
White City is a district in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, to the north of Shepherd's Bush. Today, White City is home to the BBC Television Centre and BBC White City, and Loftus Road stadium, the home of football club Queens Park Rangers FC....

 area to the north of Shepherd's Bush Green and to construct the Westfield Shopping Centre
Westfield London
Westfield London is a shopping centre in White City in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. The centre was developed by the Westfield Group at a cost of £1.6bn,...

. As part of this project, Shepherd's Bush Central line station was reconstructed in 2008 by Westfield as part of a Section 106 contribution. The Westfield redevelopment also included the construction of an integrated bus interchange and the new London Overground
London Overground
London Overground is a suburban rail network in London and Hertfordshire. It has been operated by London Overground Rail Operations since 2007 as part of the National Rail network, under the franchise control and branding of Transport for London...

  station on the West London Line
West London Line
The West London Line is a short railway in inner West London which links lines at in the south to lines near Willesden Junction in the north. It has always been an important cross-London link especially for freight services...

. The new Overground station opened on 28 September 2008 and is close to the site of the former station which closed in 1940.

During the reconstruction of the Central line station, Transport for London closed the station completely for eight months; TfL based their decision on the need to replace the escalator
Escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase – a conveyor transport device for carrying people between floors of a building. The device consists of a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that move up or down on tracks, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.Escalators are used around the...

s at the same time as rebuilding work. This decision caused local controversy, and critics claimed that the works had been timed to benefit incoming businesses involved in the planned redevelopment of the area, at the cost of local residents and small business holders. The local MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for the Shepherd's Bush constituency, Andrew Slaughter
Andrew Slaughter
Andrew Francis Slaughter is a British Labour Party politician who was elected as Member of Parliament for Hammersmith in 2010. He had previously been MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush from 2005 to 2010 and before that, Leader of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Council...

, investigated the project and obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act which showed that the contractor, Metronet
Metronet
Metronet Rail was one of two companies in a public-private partnership with London Underground.Metronet was responsible for the maintenance, renewal, and upgrade of the infrastructure on nine London Underground lines from 2003 to 2008. This included track, trains, signals, civil work and stations...

, had advised that the work could be completed without closing the station. Shepherd's Bush station re-opened to passengers on 5 October 2008.

During the refurbishment, Transport for London did not add lifts
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...

 to the station as originally planned, citing installation costs of £100 million due to the various underground utilities nearby which would have to be diverted. The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham is a London borough in West London, and forms part of Inner London. Traversed by the east-west main roads of the A4 Great West Road and the A40 Westway, many international corporations have offices in the borough....

 and disability pressure groups
Disability rights movement
The disability rights movement is the movement to secure equal opportunities and equal rights for people with disabilities. The specific goals and demands of the movement are: accessibility and safety in transportation, architecture, and the physical environment, equal opportunities in independent...

 have been critical of the fact that the station remains inaccessible
Accessibility
Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" and benefit from some system or entity...

 for those unable to use stairs.

Transport links

National Rail
National Rail
National Rail is a title used by the Association of Train Operating Companies as a generic term to define the passenger rail services operated in Great Britain...


There is a direct out-of-station interchange with the adjacent , which is accessed at surface level by crossing the bus way. This provides connections with
  • London Overground
    London Overground
    London Overground is a suburban rail network in London and Hertfordshire. It has been operated by London Overground Rail Operations since 2007 as part of the National Rail network, under the franchise control and branding of Transport for London...

     West London Line
    West London Line
    The West London Line is a short railway in inner West London which links lines at in the south to lines near Willesden Junction in the north. It has always been an important cross-London link especially for freight services...

     services between and . In peak hours, northbound services continue to .
  • Southern
    Southern (train operating company)
    Southern is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. Officially named Southern Railway Ltd., it is a subsidiary of Govia, a joint venture between transport groups Go-Ahead Group and Keolis, and has operated the South Central rail franchise since October 2000 and the Gatwick Express service...

     rail services between East Croydon
    East Croydon station
    East Croydon station is a railway station and tram stop in Croydon, 10.35 miles south of London Bridge in Travelcard Zone 5. It is the largest and busiest station in Croydon and the busiest in London outside Travelcard Zone 1 in terms of the number of passengers entering and exiting...

     and


London Buses
London Buses
London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London that manages bus services within Greater London, UK. Buses are required to carry similar red colour schemes and conform to the same fare scheme...


London Buses routes 31, 49, 72, 94, 95, 148, 207, 220, 228, 237, 260, 272, 283, 295, 316, 607, C1 and N207 serve this station.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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