Hammersmith tube station (Piccadilly & District Line)
Encyclopedia
Hammersmith tube station 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 Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...

. It is on the District Line
District Line
The District line is a line of the London Underground, coloured green on the Tube map. It is a "sub-surface" line, running through the central area in shallow cut-and-cover tunnels. It is the busiest of the sub-surface lines. Out of the 60 stations served, 25 are underground...

 line between Barons Court
Barons Court tube station
Barons Court is a London Underground station in West Kensington, Greater London. This station services the District Line and the Piccadilly Line. The station is located on Gliddon Road, a short distance from Talgarth Road in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham...

 and Ravenscourt Park
Ravenscourt Park tube station
Ravenscourt Park is a London Underground station located in west Hammersmith, west London. The station is served by the District Line and is between Hammersmith and Stamford Brook stations....

, and on the Piccadilly Line
Piccadilly Line
The Piccadilly line is a line of the London Underground, coloured dark blue on the Tube map. It is the fifth busiest line on the Underground network judged by the number of passengers transported per year. It is mainly a deep-level line, running from the north to the west of London via Zone 1, with...

 between Barons Court
Barons Court tube station
Barons Court is a London Underground station in West Kensington, Greater London. This station services the District Line and the Piccadilly Line. The station is located on Gliddon Road, a short distance from Talgarth Road in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham...

 and Acton Town
Acton Town tube station
Acton Town is a London Underground station in Acton, west London, served by the Piccadilly and District lines. The station is at the junction of Gunnersbury Lane and Bollo Lane and is in Travelcard Zone 3.-Services:...

 or Turnham Green
Turnham Green tube station
Turnham Green is a London Underground station in Chiswick in west London. The station is located on Turnham Green Terrace, but the actual green is much closer to Chiswick Park station. The station is served by the District and Piccadilly Lines although Piccadilly Line trains normally only stop at...

 at very early morning and late evening hours. The station is 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 Hammersmith and City Line's and Circle Line's station of the same name is a separate station to the north-west. The two stations are separated by Hammersmith Broadway.

History

The station was opened on 9 September 1874 by the Metropolitan District Railway
Metropolitan District Railway
The Metropolitan District Railway was the predecessor of the District line of the London Underground. Set up on 29 July 1864, at first to complete the "Inner Circle" railway around central London, it was gradually extended into the suburbs...

 (MDR, now the District Line) as the western terminus of the railway when it was extended from Earl's Court
Earl's Court tube station
Earl's Court tube station is a London Underground station in Earls Court. The station is located between Earls Court Road and Warwick Road . It is on the boundary of Travelcard Zone 1 and 2 and is in both zones....

. In 1877, Hammersmith became a through station when the MDR was extended west to meet the 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...

 (L&SWR) at Ravenscourt Park and services over the L&SWR tracks started to Richmond
Richmond station (London)
Richmond station is a National Rail and London Underground station in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south west London which is managed by South West Trains....

.

On 5 May 1878, the Midland Railway
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 to 1922, when it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway....

 began running a circuitous service known as the Super Outer Circle from St Pancras to Earl's Court
Earl's Court tube station
Earl's Court tube station is a London Underground station in Earls Court. The station is located between Earls Court Road and Warwick Road . It is on the boundary of Travelcard Zone 1 and 2 and is in both zones....

 via Cricklewood
Cricklewood railway station
Cricklewood railway station is in the London Borough of Barnet in North London. The station lies on the north-south Midland Main Line where it crosses Cricklewood Lane. It is served by First Capital Connect services as part of the Thameslink service...

 and South Acton
South Acton railway station
South Acton railway station is in the London Borough of Ealing in South Acton, west London. It is on the North London Line, and the station and all trains serving it are operated by London Overground. It is in Travelcard Zone 3...

 on the Dudding Hill Line
Dudding Hill Line
The Dudding Hill Line is a railway line in north-west London running from Acton to Cricklewood. The line has no scheduled passenger service, no stations, no electrification, and a 30 mph speed limit with semaphore signalling, and is lightly used by freight and very occasional passenger charter...

. It operated over a now disused connection between the North London Railway
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...

 and the L&SWR Richmond branch. The service was not a success and was ended on 30 September 1880.

On 21 December 1908, the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway
Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway
The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway , also known as the Piccadilly tube, was a railway company established in 1902 that constructed a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London. The GNP&BR was formed through a merger of two older companies, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus...

 (GNP&BR, now the Piccadilly Line) opened with Hammersmith as its western terminus.

The opening of the western extension of the Piccadilly Line from 4 July 1932 required the reconstruction of the station at track level to increase the number of platforms to four and much of the station was rebuilt behind the Harry W Ford designed station building on Hammersmith Broadway
Hammersmith Broadway
Hammersmith Broadway is a street which serves as a major transport node and shopping centre located in west London. It is home to the Piccadilly and District lines' Hammersmith station, as well as Hammersmith bus station. It is located on Hammersmith Road, in the London Borough of Hammersmith &...

. Charles Holden
Charles Holden
Charles Henry Holden, Litt. D., FRIBA, MRTPI, RDI was a Bolton-born English architect best known for designing many London Underground stations during the 1920s and 1930s, for Bristol Central Library, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London's headquarters at 55 Broadway and for the...

 designed a secondary entrance for Queen Caroline Street virtually identical to one he designed at the same time for Highgate
Archway tube station
Archway tube station is a London Underground station in north London, underneath the Archway Tower, at the intersection of Holloway Road, Highgate Hill and Junction Road in the area known as Archway....

 (now Archway) station, since demolished.

The station buildings were demolished along with the neighbouring bus garage in the early 1990s and incorporated into a modern shopping centre and Underground and bus interchange. During the redevelopment the designers commissioned to undertake the station's re-design, Minale Tattersfield, salvaged parts of the tiling from the Harry W Ford façade showing the station name and the lines serving it were removed and preserved within the new construction. They now form a frame to a decorative mosaic of Hammersmith Bridge
Hammersmith Bridge
Hammersmith Bridge is a crossing of the River Thames in west London, just south of the Hammersmith town centre area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham on the north side of the river. It allows road traffic and pedestrians to cross to Barnes on the south side of the river...

 in the station's north ticket hall.

The 2003 Derailment

The Tunnel just outside the station was the location of a train derailment on the District Line on October 17, 2003 when the wheels of the second to last carriage left the tracks. There were no injuries, but there was some damage to rails and sleepers. A report from the subsequent investigation, with input from maintenance contractors 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...

, 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...

, rail unions and rail consultants, determined that the direct cause was a broken rail, and suggested that this resulted from outdated specifications for track inspection, resourcing and equipment.

The rail that snapped was on the outside of a curved section of track. It had been turned around by London Underground in 2001, because of corrosion
Corrosion
Corrosion is the disintegration of an engineered material into its constituent atoms due to chemical reactions with its surroundings. In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of metals in reaction with an oxidant such as oxygen...

 on its inner face, so that what had been its running side was positioned on the outside of the curve. This meant that what had been the running side – the corroded section – was then put under tension.

The combination of corrosion and the forces exerted on it by trains led to the rail snapping. Ultrasonic
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is thus not separated from "normal" sound based on differences in physical properties, only the fact that humans cannot hear it. Although this limit varies from person to person, it is...

 inspection equipment specified for track inspections was unable to detect outside face cracks of the type thought to have led to the break. 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...

 indicated that it would respond to the incident by using different ultrasound detection equipment, increasing the frequency of track inspections, and preferentially replacing rails rather than turning them around.

See also

  • Hammersmith (Grove Road) station
    Hammersmith (Grove Road) station
    Hammersmith railway station was on the London and South Western Railway . It was located in Grove Road , Hammersmith, adjacent to the Hammersmith & City and Circle lines station....

    , a third station that used to exist adjacent to the Hammersmith and City Line station on the L&SWR line through 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....

     to 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...

    .
  • Hammersmith tube station (Hammersmith & City and Circle lines)

Transport links

London bus routes 9
London Buses route 9
London Buses route 9 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, England, United Kingdom. The regular service on route 9 is currently contracted to London United...

, 10
London Buses route 10
London Buses route 10 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, England, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to London United.-History:...

, 27
London Buses route 27
London Buses route 27 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London. The service is currently contracted to London United.-History:...

, 33
London Buses route 33
London Buses route 33 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to Transdev London.-History:...

, 72, 190, 209
London Buses route 209
London Buses route 209 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, England. The service is currently contracted to Metroline.-History:...

, 211
London Buses route 211
London Buses route 211 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to Abellio London.-History:...

, 220
London Buses route 220
London Buses route 220 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to London United.-History:...

, 266
London Buses route 266
London Buses route 266 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, England. The service is currently contracted to Metroline.-History:The 266 replaced the former trolleybus route 666 between Edgware and Hammersmith in 1962...

, 267
London Buses route 267
London Buses route 267 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to London United.-History:...

, 283, 295, 391
London Buses route 391
London Buses route 391 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to London United.-History:...

, 419, 485, H91
London Buses route H91
London Buses route H91 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to London United.-History:...

 and night route N9, N11 and N97.

External links


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