London Underground Bakerloo Line

London Underground Bakerloo Line is a Transport for London operated tube line in London, England. Running between Harow and Wealdstone in suburban north-west London and Elephant & Castle in south London, via the West End. It is coloured brown on the Tube map, it serves 25 stations, of which 15 are below ground, the line runs partly on the surface and partly at deep level.

The line was so named because it serves Baker Street and Waterloo. North of Queen's Park (the section above ground), the line shares tracks with the London Overground Watford DC Line and runs parallel to the West Coast Main Line. There are, however, tunnels on either side of Kensal Green.

Following the withdrawal of the A Stock on the Metropolitan line in 2012, and the C Stock on the Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines in June 2014, the 1972 Tube Stock trains are now the oldest trains on the London Underground and also on any rapid transit system in the United Kingdom.

History
Opened between 1906 and 1915, many of its stations retain elements of their design to a common standard, the stations below ground using Art Nouveau decorative tiling by Leslie Green and the above-ground stations built in red brick with stone detailing in an Arts & Crafts style. It is the ninth busiest line on the network, carrying over 111 million passengers annually.

The route had its origins in the failed projects of the pneumatic 1865 Waterloo and Whitehall Railway and the 1882 Charing Cross and Waterloo Electric Railway.

Originally called the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway, the line was constructed by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) and opened between Baker Street and Lambeth North (then called Kennington Road) on 10 March 1906. It was extended to Elephant & Castle five months later, on 5 August. The contraction of the name to "Bakerloo" rapidly caught on, and the official name was changed to match in July 1906.

When work on the line started in June 1898, it had been financed by the mining entrepreneur and company promoter Whitaker Wright, who fell foul of the law over the financial proceedings involved and dramatically committed suicide at the Royal Courts of Justice, after being convicted in 1904. As a result, work on the line was stopped for a few months and did not resume until Charles Yerkes and UERL stepped in and took over the project.

By 1913, the line had been extended from its original northern terminus at Baker Street to the west with interchange stations with the Great Central Railway at Marylebone and the Great Western Railway at Paddington, and a new station at Edgware Road.

In 1915 the line was extended to Queen's Park, where it joined the LNWR's Euston-Watford DC line (now part of London Overground) to Watford Junction.

On 26 June 1972, 1972 stock trains were introduced.

On 1 May 1979, the service to Stanmore was withdrawn.

In 1982, the service from Harrow & Wealdstone to Watford Junction was withdrawn and the terminal was altered to Stonebridge Park instead of Harrow & Wealdstone.

In 1984, a weekend only service to Harrow & Wealdstone was retained.

In 1989, the full service was reinstated.

On 29 April 2016, the 1972 Stock trains were refurbished to have life extension work as the line was chosen to have its oldest trains on the system refurbished.

By the mid-1930s, the Metropolitan line was suffering from congestion caused by the limited capacity of its tracks between Baker Street and Finchley Road stations. To relieve this pressure, this included the construction of new sections of tunnel between the Bakerloo line's platforms at Baker Street and Finchley Road and the replacement of three Metropolitan line stations (Lord's, Marlborough Road and Swiss Cottage) between those points with two new Bakerloo stations (St. John's Wood and Swiss Cottage). The Bakerloo line took over the Metropolitan line's service to Stanmore on 20 November 1939. The branch remained part of the Bakerloo line until 1 May 1979, when similar congestion problems for the Bakerloo line caused by two branches converging at Baker Street led to the opening of the Jubilee line, initially created by connecting the Stanmore branch to new tunnels bored between Baker Street and Charing Cross.

When the Bakerloo line was extended to Watford in 1915, it acquired an interchange at Harrow & Wealdstone with another route to Stanmore, the Stanmore branch line. This branch line was operated by the LNWR and terminated at a separate Stanmore station (later renamed Stanmore Village). It was closed in 1964, partly due to the success of the rival Metropolitan/Bakerloo Underground line to Stanmore.

Current Route
The Bakerloo Line operates via these underground stations.
 * Elephant and Castle
 * Lambeth North
 * Waterloo
 * Embankment
 * Charing Cross
 * Piccadilly Circus
 * Oxford Circus
 * Regent's Park
 * Baker Street
 * Marylebone
 * Edgware Road
 * Paddington
 * Warwick Avenue
 * Maida Vale
 * Kilburn Park
 * Queens Park
 * Kensal Green
 * Wilesden Juction
 * Harlesden
 * Stonebridge Park
 * Wembley Central
 * North Wembley
 * South Kenton
 * Kenton
 * Harrow and Wealdstone