Gloucester Road tube station

Gloucester Road is a London Underground station in the district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is located in the Travelcard Zone 1, at the junction of Gloucester Road and Cromwell Road. In 2011, 14.16 million passengers used the station. It is close to the Baden -Powell House is.

Plant

Is operated by the station on the one hand by the Circle Line and the District Line, which operate in this region immediately below the surface, on the other hand by the Piccadilly Line, with platforms are in a deep tunnel.

There are two different station building on Cromwell Road, which was built by order of different railway companies. The elder was born in 1868 and consists of handmade yellowish- brown bricks. It has two floors, five arched windows and stone balustrades. The younger building was built in 1906 under the direction of architect Leslie Green, who used a uniform style for the entire Piccadilly Line. Typical features are the blood red glazed terracotta brick, large semicircular windows on the upper floor and toothed cornices. Both buildings are under monument protection since 1984 (Grade II).

History

District / Circle Line

The opening of the station took place on October 1, 1868 under the name Brompton (Gloucester Road) by the Metropolitan Railway ( MR), the predecessor company of the Metropolitan Line, as a temporary terminus of the Paddington from here leading track section. On 24 December the same year the MR extended their tracks on to South Kensington, where they met on the first section of the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR, predecessor company of District Line ). The Gloucester Road Station received four tracks over which was stretched a glazed elliptical iron roof. At the eastern end of a station building of brick and arched windows was built. At the beginning let the MR trains over the tracks of both companies operate.

Since the 1840s, the development of the Belgravia had gradually expanded toward the west, but at the time of track construction were mainly in the area around the station kitchen gardens. The construction of the subway led the landowners to extend the Cromwell Road westward, and the opening of the station initiated a housing boom.

The MDR opened on 12 April 1869, leading southwestward extension of Gloucester Road to West Brompton. Back then there was no stopover - Earl 's Court was opened in 1871 - and between two stations at first intercourse, a commuter train. On 1 August 1870, the MDR took took the additional tracks between Gloucester Road and South Kensington in operation and the trains ran through to West Brompton. Since 1949, the Circle Line is considered as a separate line while the Metropolitan Line was withdrawn.

In the 1970s, was rebuilt. The eastward leading platform of the Circle Line was shut down and the tracks changed so that you could remove the leading westward track of the Circle Line and widen the island platform. To the east, both the Circle Line and the District Line stop on the north side of the island platform. The decommissioned platforms used for art installations as part of the cultural program Art on the Underground, which are often placed in the recesses of the existing brick retaining wall. In the 1990s arose over the tracks of the District and Circle a mezzanine with shops and apartments.

Piccadilly Line

Around the turn of the century, the southern part of the ring circuit was overloaded. For this reason, the MDR planned the construction of tunnels for express trains between Gloucester Road and Mansion House. You should run 18 to 21 feet below the existing tracks, with only one intermediate station at Charing Cross. 1897, Parliament granted the approval, but remained under construction. 1898 took over the MDR, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway ( B & PCR), which was planning an underground between South Kensington and Piccadilly Circus. Furthermore, there was no construction activity.

Following the acquisition of the MDR by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London ( UERL ) in 1902, the various tunnel projects have been merged. The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (now the Piccadilly Line), a subsidiary of UERL, opened on December 15, 1906 new tunnel platforms on the route Hammersmith - Finsbury Park. In 1907, the station its current name. From 30 August 1987 to 21 May 1989, the tunnel platforms were closed in order to carry out extensive renovation and reconstruction work can.