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'Moorgate station' is a London Underground and National Rail station in the City of London, on Moorgate, north of London Wall. At one time the station was named "Moorgate Street". It is a terminus for suburban First Capital Connect services from Hertford, Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth, and, during peak hours, trains on the Thameslink line, also run by First Capital Connect. It is the site of the Moorgate tube crash of 1975 in which 46 people were killed and 74 were injured.^[1]
The Underground station is on the City branch of the Northern Line between Old Street and Bank and also on the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines, between Barbican and Liverpool Street.
Moorgate temporarily became the terminus for the Metropolitan Line in the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 London bombings when the line between Moorgate and Aldgate was closed off.

Contents

Sub-surface platforms

Deep-level platforms

References

External links

Sub-surface platforms

The Circle Line, Hammersmith & City Line, Metropolitan Line and First Capital Connect's Thameslink platforms are in a cut and cover section. When the line from King's Cross was quadrupled, the new route from there to Moorgate became known as the Widened Lines.
Peak-hour First Capital Connect trains on the Thameslink service from Bedford and Luton terminate here using platforms 5 & 6, parallel to the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan platforms 1 & 2 (through platforms) and 3 & 4 (bays). The Underground lines are electrified on the standard LUL four rail system, the Thameslink bays using 25 kV AC overhead.
Completely rebuilt and extended to six platforms in the 1960s, the sub-surface part of the station was opened by the Metropolitan Railway in December 1865 as the first extension from its original route between Paddington and Farringdon.
Under the Thameslink Programme the platforms at Farringdon would be extended at the southern end of the station to accommodate 12 carriage trains. The proximity of Farringdon Junction to the station itself means that the extended platforms will be over the junction. As a consequence, the junction will be removed, leaving only the route through the Snow Hill tunnel, with the Moorgate branch closed.
The British Rail services to Moorgate along this route were originally steam operated, then operated by class 31s until the mid 1970s. Services went to both London Midland Region destinations (along the Midland Main Line) and to Eastern Region destinations (via the York Road Curve/Hotel Curve to join the East Coast Main Line at King's Cross). The ER (now ECML) connections were removed when the deep level line (see below) transferred to British Rail and became the sole route for Eastern Region trains. All four bay platforms may have been used by British Rail services until this time.
The LMR trains up what is now the Midland Main Line were withdrawn circa 1979, but the line was reopened around 1983 when the class 317 BedPan units were introduced; services again worked via Barbican, Farringdon, and King's Cross Midland City to Kentish Town and stations north to Luton and Bedford. King's Cross Midland City was renamed King's Cross Thameslink with the introduction of the Thameslink services via the Snow Hill tunnel from Bedford to Brighton.

Deep-level platforms

The Northern Line platforms were opened by the City & South London Railway (C&SLR) as "Moorgate Street" in February 1900 as the northern terminus of its services from Stockwell south of the River Thames. The line was extended to Angel the following year. The original C&SLR station building remains on the west side of Moorgate and the offices above the station were built as the headquarters of the railway. These trains serve platforms 7 & 8.
Directly above those lines are the Northern City Line platforms 9 & 10, now served by First Capital Connect (previously West Anglia Great Northern). The Northern City Line platforms were opened by the Great Northern & City Railway (GN&CR) in February 1904 providing a service to Finsbury Park. The original hope of the GN&CR was that main line trains would run from the Great Northern Railway's platforms at Finsbury Park directly into the city and the tunnels were constructed at a diameter capable of accommodating main line trains. Disputes and rivalry between the two companies meant that this did not happen and it was not until the 1970s, after the line had changed from the ownership of London Underground to British Rail, that a through service began to operate—prior to then, services ran from Moorgate to suburban stations on the East Coast Main Line via the Widened Lines and the York Road Curve/Hotel Curve.
From 1934 until 1975 the Northern Line operated the Northern City Line as its City or Highbury Branch. On 28 February 1975, shortly before ownership changed, a southbound train crashed into the tunnel end wall beyond the platform, killing 43 people, the second greatest loss of life on the Underground in peacetime. Safety improvements since then have included the introduction of what is known as ''Moorgate Control'' - see Moorgate tube crash.
On National Rail live departure boards the code for the former Thameslink services is MOG and for the former WAGN services it is ZMG. Both display the full live departure board for both sets of services.

References

1. History A Time Line for Policing the Railways

External links

★ Moorgate station building in 1915.

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