Waterloo Underground Station

Waterloo is a London Underground station located beneath Waterloo National Rail station. As of 2017, it is the second busiest station on the London Underground, with 91.27 million users. It is served by four lines: the Bakerloo, Jubilee, Northern and Waterloo & City lines.

The station is situated in fare zone 1 and is located near the South Bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is within walking distance of the London Eye.

History

The first Underground Line at Waterloo was opened on 8 August 1898 by the Waterloo & City Railway (W&CR), a subsidiary of the owners of the main line station, the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR). The W&CR, nicknamed "The Drain", achieved in a limited way the L&SWR's original plan of taking ist tracks the short distance north-east into the City of London.

On 10 March 1906, the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (now the Bakerloo line) was opened. On 13 September 1926, the extension of the Hampstead & Highgate line (as the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line was then known) was opened from Embankment to the existing City and South London Railway station at Kennington with a new station at Waterloo.

As a subsidiary of the L&SWR and ist successor, the Southern Railway, the W&CR was not a part of the London Underground system. Following nationalisation of the main line railway companies in 1948, it became part of British Railways (later British Rail).

In March 1965, a British Rail and London Transport joint planning committee published "A Railway Plan for London" that included a recommendation to revive a plan from the 1900s for an extension of the Piccadilly line's Aldwych branch to Waterloo. London Transport had already sought parliamentary approval to construct tunnels from Aldwych to Waterloo in November 1964, and in August 1965, parliamentary powers were granted. Detailed planning took place, although public spending cuts led to postponement of the scheme in 1967 before tenders were invited.

Following a period of closure during 1993 when the Waterloo & City line was converted to use the four rail electrical system of the London Underground, the ownership of the line was transferred to the Underground on 1 April 1994. Due to an Easter shut-down, the first Underground service on the line was on 5 April 1994.

On 24 September 1999, the Jubilee line platforms were opened as part of the Jubilee Line Extension. The station was temporarily the western terminus of the extension running from Stratford in east London, before the final section to link the extension to the original line was opened between Waterloo and Green Park on 20 November 1999. The Jubilee line platforms are at the opposite end of the site from those of the Bakerloo and Northern lines, but the two ends are connected by a 140-metre (460 ft) moving walkway link (one of only two on the Underground; the other gives access to the Waterloo & City line platform at Bank station).

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Waterloo tube station" and modified on July 23, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.