'Finchley Road tube station' is a
London Underground station at the corner of
Finchley Road and Canfield Gardens in the
London Borough of Camden,
London NW3. It is on the
Jubilee Line, between
West Hampstead and
Swiss Cottage and on the
Metropolitan Line between
Baker Street and
Wembley Park. It is in
Travelcard Zone 2.
The station is adjacent to the
O2 Shopping Centre. Despite its name the station is not in
Finchley which is several miles to the north. It serves the
Frognal and
South Hampstead areas.
History
The station was opened on
30 June 1879 by the
Metropolitan Railway (MR, now the
Metropolitan Line) on its extension from its now closed station at
St. John's Wood (a different station to the current
St. John's Wood Jubilee Line station). The station was rebuilt in
1914 with entrances incorporated into a new parade of shops.
By the mid
1930s the Metroplitan Line was suffering from congestion on its main routes from north London caused by the limited capacity of its tracks between Finchley Road and Baker Street stations. To alleviate this congestion new sections of deep tube tunnels were bored between Finchley Road and Baker Street to carry some of the traffic from the
Stanmore branch and stations south of Wembley Park. These new tunnels opened on
20 November 1939 and from that date Finchley Road station was also served by
Bakerloo Line trains running from Baker Street using the new tunnels. The Bakerloo Line services were subsequently transferred to the Jubilee Line when that line commenced operation on
1 May 1979.
Gallery
Trivia
Analysis of earth removed when
tunnelling towards the station revealed that its site was on the edge of the
glacier which covered
Britain to the north throughout the last
Ice Age.
External links
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London's Transport Museum Photographic Archive
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www.railwayarchive.org.uk Finchley Road station, Canfield Gardens entrance, 1933.