Whitechapel tube station

 

Whitechapel
Location
Place	Whitechapel
Local authority	Tower Hamlets
Operations
Managed by	London Underground
Platforms in use	6
Transport for London
Zone	2
Annual entry/exit	8.858 million †
History
1876 1884 1902 1906 1913 1913 1936 1995 1998 2006	Opened (ELR) Opened as terminus(MDR) Opened extension east(MDR/LT&SR) Started (MR at MDR station) Ended (MR at MDR station) Started (MR at ELR station) Restarted (Metropolitan) Closed (ELL) Opened (ELL) Becomes terminus of ELL
Transport for London List of London stations: Underground | National Rail
† Data from Transport for London [1]
London Transport Portal

Whitechapel is a London Underground station in Whitechapel in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located on Whitechapel Road (A11) and is in Zone 2.

The station is on the Hammersmith & City and District lines between Aldgate East and Stepney Green. The station is the current northern terminus of the East London Line; Shadwell is the next station south.

History

Whitechapel station was originally opened in 1876 when the mainline East London Railway (ELR, now the East London Line) was extended north from Wapping to Liverpool Street station. The ELR owned the tracks and stations but did not operate trains. From the beginning various railway companies provided services through Whitechapel including the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (LB&SCR), the London, Chatham & Dover Railway (LC&DR) and the South Eastern Railway (SER). Later the Great Eastern Railway (GER) added services.

On 6 October 1884 the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR, now the District Line) opened a new station adjacent to the deeper ELR station as the terminus of an extension from Mansion House (part of the extension also formed the final section of the Circle Line). The new station was given the name Whitechapel (Mile End). The ELR passenger service between Whitechapel and Liverpool Street was withdrawn in 1885. The station received its present name on 13 November 1901.

On 1 February 1902 the MDR station was temporarily closed for rebuilding. It reopened on 2 June 1902 when the MDR opened the Whitechapel & Bow Railway, a joint venture with the London Tilbury & Southend Railway (LT&SR). The new extension ran eastwards to Bromley-by-Bow where it joined the LT&SR's tracks. MDR services then operated regularly to Upminster and as far as Southend-on-Sea in the summer.

The MDR tracks were electrified in 1905 and electric trains replaced steam trains. Services going eastwards were cut back to the limit of electrification at East Ham and later re-extended to Barking in 1908 and Upminster 1932.^[1] On 3 December 1906 the Metropolitan Railway (MR, now the Metropolitan Line/Hammersmith & City Line) extended its service to Whitechapel as the eastern terminus of its service.

The MR also ran trains over the southern section of ELR via a connection (the St Mary's curve) between the MDR tracks west of Whitechapel and the ELR tracks north of Shadwell station. When, in 1913, the tracks of the ELR were electrified it ended services to the MDR station and extended its ELR service through Whitechapel to Shoreditch (then the terminus of the line but now closed) The change of service took place on 31 March 1913.

On 30 March 1936 the Metropolitan Line began operating again through the District Line station as far as Barking. The Metropolitan Line service is now operated as the Hammersmith & City Line.

On 25 March 1995 the East London Line was closed to allow repair works on the Thames Tunnel. General renovations and new signalling works were undertaken at the same time. The line reopened south from Whitechapel on 25 March 1998 and north from Whitechapel on 27 September 1998.

In preparation for the future extension of the East London Line to Dalston and Islington, the line north of Whitechapel to Shoreditch was closed on 9 June 2006. Services to Shoreditch had previously been run during peak hours and Sunday mornings only and services have been replaced by a bus link.

Station today

The station consists of six platforms in open cuttings north of Whitechapel Road. The Hammersmith & City and District Lines have two eastbound and two westbound, and East London Line has one north and southbound (which now serve as terminal platforms). The East London Line tracks are at the eastern end of the station and are in a deeper cutting.

Whitechapel acts as the eastern terminus for some Hammersmith & City Line trains, particularly at weekends and outside peak hours.

Future plans

This article or section contains information about a planned or expected future railway station. It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the railway station approaches, and more information becomes available.

Work on the extension of the East London Line is underway and the line will close on 22 December 2007 and not reopen until June 2010 when new tracks on a new alignment will connect to a disused North London Railway viaduct from Shoreditch to Dalston. It will then become part of the new London Overground network. Temporary bus services will operate during the closure. Whitechapel will then have the odd situation where the London Underground part of the station is above the London Overground part.

Crossrail line 1 will call at Whitechapel, forking into two eastbound branches after the station.

Trivia

The St Mary's curve connection between the District Line track and the East London Line was used for passenger traffic until 1941 but is now only used to transfer empty trains to and from the other sub-surface lines. The curve is often lit and can easily be seen from the left-hand side of East London Line trains entering Whitechapel station from the south.

Also just west of Whitechapel is the former St Mary's (Whitechapel Road) tube station, one of the many closed London Underground stations.

Whitechapel is the only station on the Underground that is served by all 3 forms of the network's sub-surface rolling stock.

Local sights

Nearby places of interest include the Royal London Hospital, the Blind Beggar public house, and the former Wickham's department store.

References

External links

• London's Transport Museum Photographic Archive
  • Whitechapel station booking hall, 1927
  • East London Line platform, 1955
  • District line platforms, 1957
• Tube Professionals' Rumour Network - Track Diagram showing layout of station and St. Mary's curve
• Google Maps - Whitechapel station satellite view

Previous station		London Underground		Next station
Aldgate East towards Hammersmith		Hammersmith & City Line		Stepney Green towards Barking
Aldgate East towards Wimbledon, Richmond or Ealing Broadway		District Line		Stepney Green towards Upminster
Terminus		East London Line		Shadwell towards New Cross or New Cross Gate

Coordinates: 51°31′10″N, 0°03′40″W

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