The Ultimate Jubilee Line - American History Information Guide and Reference

The Jubilee Line is a line on the London Underground, coloured grey on the Tube map.

Contents

3.1 Charing Cross branch
3.2 Stratford branch

History

The line was opened on May 1, 1979, taking up one of the Bakerloo Line's two branches to relieve congestion on its common portion. The Baker Street to Stanmore branch was joined to a new four kilometre segment into central London with a terminus at a new station at Charing Cross railway station.

There had already been a Charing Cross station, on the Circle, District, Bakerloo and Northern lines. This was renamed Embankment. The new Charing Cross tube station created a new interchange, amalgamating the stations of Strand on the Northern Line and Trafalgar Square on the Bakerloo.

The new line was to have been called the Fleet Line after the River Fleet, but the project was renamed for the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's 1977 Silver Jubilee and because the original plans to go West towards Fleet Street had been shelved. The choice of grey for the tube map is presumed to represent silver.

The Jubilee line of 1979 was meant to be only the first phase of the project, but lack of funds meant the line stayed the same until the late 1990s. Phase 2 would have extended the line along Fleet Street to Aldwych and then across the River Thames to Lewisham.

Changes in land use, particularly the urban renewal of the Docklands area, meant the project to extend the line beyond Charing Cross changed considerably in the 1990s. The Jubilee Line Extension, opened in three stages in 1999, split from the existing line at Green Park, creating a one-station branch to Charing Cross which is now closed.