Jubilee line

The western section of the line between Stanmore and Baker Street was previously a branch of the Metropolitan line until 1939 and later a branch of the Bakerloo line until 1979, while the newly built line was completed in two major sections: initially in 1979 to Charing Cross, then in 1999 with an extension to Stratford. The later stations are larger and have special safety features, both aspects being attempts to future-proof the line. Following the extension to east London, serving areas once poorly connected to the Underground, the line has seen a huge growth in passenger numbers and is the fourth-busiest on the network (after the Northern, Victoria and Central lines), with over 276 million passenger journeys in 2019.

Between Wembley Park and Finchley Road, the Jubilee line shares its route with the Metropolitan line and the Chiltern Main Line. Between Canning Town and Stratford it runs parallel to the Stratford International branch of the Docklands Light Railway. The Jubilee line is printed silver/grey on the Tube map, to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II, after which the line was named.

History

1932 to 1939

The first section of what is now the Jubilee line opened in 1932, when the Metropolitan Railway built a branch from its main line at Wembley Park to Stanmore. The line, as with many others in the northwest London area, was designed for the use of commuters from the new and rapidly expanding suburbs. The line presented the Metropolitan with a problem. The suburban traffic had been so successful that, by the early 1930s, the lines into Baker Street were becoming overloaded, a problem exacerbated by the post-war flight from the City of London to the West End of London.

At first, the Metropolitan had advocated a new deep tube line roughly following the line of the Edgware Road between the tube station and a point near Willesden Green. Indeed, construction advanced as far as the rebuilding of Edgware Road station to accommodate 4 platforms of 8-car length. Things changed, though, with the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) and the subsequent absorption of the Metropolitan line. The solution was now a new branch of the Bakerloo line from Baker Street to serve new stations at St John's Wood and Swiss Cottage, thereby rendering the existing stations of Lord's, Marlborough Road and Swiss Cottage on the parallel route redundant, and negating the need for the Met's extension from Edgware Road station. It was originally proposed that the Metropolitan line's Swiss Cottage station would remain open during peak hours for interchange with the Bakerloo, and that Lord's station would open for special cricketing events, but both were closed permanently as economy measures during the Second World War.

The new line rose between the Metropolitan line tracks at Finchley Road, providing cross-platform interchange with the Metropolitan line. Continuing north to Wembley Park, the new Bakerloo line branch was to provide local service on the Metropolitan line, where Metropolitan line trains ran non-stop between Finchley Road and Wembley Park, cutting seven minutes from journey times. At Wembley Park, the new Bakerloo would turn north to serve Kingsbury, Queensbury, Canons Park and Stanmore, taking over the former Metropolitan branch. The Bakerloo extension, built as above, opened in 1939.

1939 to 1979, the Fleet line

The planning for the Tube network immediately before and after World War II considered several new routes. The main results of this study concerned two major routes: the south-to-northeast "line C", and lines 3 and 4, new cross-town routes, linking the northwest suburbs to Fenchurch Street, Wapping and variously Lewisham and Hayes. Line C opened as the Victoria line, in stages, from 1968 to 1972. Work on the northwest–southeast route continued.

The "Fleet line" was mentioned in a 1965 Times article, discussing options after the Victoria line had been completed – suggesting that the Fleet line could take a route via Baker Street, Bond Street, Trafalgar Square, Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Circus and Cannon Street, then proceeding into southeast London. The new line was to have been called the Fleet line, partly because it ran along Fleet Street, which itself is named after the River Fleet (although it would only have crossed under the Fleet at Ludgate Circus; the central London section mostly follows the Tyburn).

In 1971, construction began on the new Fleet line. Economic pressure and doubt over the final destination of the line had led to a staged approach. In the first stage, the Baker Street to Stanmore branch of the Bakerloo line was joined at Baker Street to a new 2.5-mile (4 km) segment into central London, with intermediate stops at Bond Street and Green Park and terminating at a new station at Charing Cross, thereby relieving pressure on the West End section of the Bakerloo line between Baker Street and Charing Cross and also allowing increased frequencies on the section north of Baker Street. The new tube was to offer cross-platform interchange between the Bakerloo and Fleet at Baker Street, as pioneered on the Victoria line. The work was completed in 1979. As part of the works, Trafalgar Square (Bakerloo) and Strand (Northern) stations were combined into a single station complex, Charing Cross. The existing Charing Cross tube station was renamed Embankment.

Another part of the works included a section of test tunnel, built near New Cross. This part of London has waterlogged soil that is difficult to tunnel in, so a new tunnelling method, called the bentonite shield, was used experimentally in 1972 to construct a 150 m (490 ft) section of tunnel on the line of the proposed Phase 2 route. The experiment was successful, leading to the introduction of this method of construction elsewhere, but when the planned route was altered, this 180-metre (590 ft) section was left abandoned.

In 1975, when plans were under way to introduce the London Transport Silver Jubilee Bus fleet, the then Sales Manager of London Transport Advertising, Geoffrey Holliman, proposed to the Chairman of LTE, Kenneth Robinson, that the Fleet line should be renamed the Jubilee line. However, this idea was initially rejected because of the additional costs involved. Nevertheless, the name was ultimately chosen for the line after Queen Elizabeth II's 1977 Silver Jubilee following a pledge made by the Conservatives in the Greater London Council election of 1977. The original choice of battleship grey for the line's colour was based on the naval meaning of the word fleet; this became a lighter grey, representing the silver colour of the Jubilee itself.

The line was officially opened by the Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) on 30 April 1979, with passenger services operating from 1 May 1979.

Proposed extensions

The Jubilee line of 1979 was to be the first of four phases of the project, but lack of funds meant that no further progress was made until the late 1990s.

• Phase 2 would have extended the line along Fleet Street to stations at Aldwych, Ludgate Circus, Cannon Street and Fenchurch Street. Parliamentary approval for this phase was granted on 27 July 1971.
• Phase 3 would have seen the line continue under the river to Surrey Docks (now Surrey Quays) station on the Windrush line, taking over both of the ELL's branches to New Cross Gate and New Cross stations, with an extension to Lewisham. Parliamentary approval for this phase as far as New Cross was granted on 5 August 1971 and the final section to Lewisham was granted approval on 9 August 1972.
• In 1973, an alternative plan for Phase 3 was devised to provide transport connections to the London Docklands area then being considered for regeneration as it was expected that the docks would be closed by the late 1980s. Initially proposed as a mainline service but later developed as a tube line extension for the Jubilee line, the new plan was developed over the next few years to a final form that considered extending the line parallel to the River Thames known informally as the 'River line'. This would have taken the line from Fenchurch Street to Thamesmead via St Katharine Docks, Wapping, Surrey Docks North, Millwall (near the later location of South Quay DLR station), North Greenwich, Custom House, Silvertown, Woolwich Arsenal, and then to Thamesmead Central. The depot would have been at Beckton, roughly on the site of the current Docklands Light Railway depot, and a shuttle service between there and Custom House was considered. Parliamentary approval for the route as far as Woolwich Arsenal including the Beckton branch was granted on 1 August 1980.
• Phase 4 was the possible continuation of the original Phase 3 Lewisham branch to take over suburban services on the Addiscombe and Hayes branches.

Millennium extension

Changes in land use, particularly the urban renewal of the Docklands area, resulted in the project to extend the line beyond Charing Cross being changed considerably in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The Jubilee Line Extension, as the eventual project became known, opened in three stages in 1999. It split from the existing line at Green Park; the service to Charing Cross was discontinued (though still maintained for reversing trains at times of disruption, and for occasional use as a film set). The line extends as far as Stratford, with ten intermediate stations.

The new stations were designed to be "future-proof", with wide passageways, large numbers of escalators and lifts, and emergency exits. The stations were the first on the Underground to have platform edge doors, and were built to have step-free access throughout. The project was the single largest addition to the Underground in 25 years.

There have been other proposals to extend the line to serve the docks.

24-hour weekend service

In mid-2014, TfL announced plans for a new Night Tube service, to include the entire Jubilee line. This would be an overnight service on Friday and Saturday nights. Its introduction was postponed because of a dispute between TfL and the three rail unions. The service eventually started on 7 October 2016.

The entire Night Tube network was suspended in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Jubilee line service being restored in May 2022.