Wembley Park tube station

Wembley Park tube station is a London Underground station in Wembley Park, Greater London. The station is served by the Underground's Metropolitan and Jubilee Lines and is in Travelcard Zone 4. It is located on Bridge Road (A4089) and is the nearest Underground station to the Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena complex.

History

Tracks were laid through the area by the Metropolitan Railway (MR, now the Metropolitan Line) when it extended its services from Willesden Green to Harrow-on-the-Hill. Services to Harrow started on 2 August 1880 although Wembley Park station was not constructed until later.

Wembley Park station was constructed to serve the pleasure grounds developed by the MR at Wembley Park, a former country estate bought by the company in 1881 [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=22465&strquery=Wembley%20Park#p12 English History Online - A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 4 (1971), pp. 198-203] ] as a destination for excursion trips on the company's trains. The station opened for the first time on 14 October 1893 and initially operated to serve only Saturday football matches in the park. It opened fully on 12 May 1894 [http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/metropolitan.html Clive's UndergrounD Line Guides - Metropolitan Line] ] . Later in the 1890s, the Great Central Railway's (GCR's) London extension was constructed adjacent to the MR's tracks. The tracks pass under the entrance building but the station has never been served by mainline operators.

In 1905 the tracks were electrified and the first electric trains became operational. Between 1913 and 1915, the MR added additional tracks to double the line's capacitycite book |last=Rose |first=Douglas |authorlink= |title=The London Underground, A Diagrammatic History |year=1999 |publisher=Douglas Rose |isbn=1-85414-219-4] . On 10 December 1932 [http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/metropolitan.html Clive's UndergrounD Line Guides - Metropolitan Line] ] , the MR opened a branch line north from Wembley Park to Stanmore.

Originally, the MR served all stations south from Wembley Park to Baker Street station but the line suffered from congestion due to limited capacity on the tracks heading into Baker Street. Following the combination of the MR and London's other underground railways to form the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) in 1933, the LPTB took steps to alleviate the congestion by constructing new Bakerloo Line tunnels from Baker Street to connect to the Metropolitan's tracks south of Finchley Road station. From 20 November 1939 [http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/bakerloo.html Clive's UndergrounD Line Guides - Bakerloo Line] ] , the Bakerloo Line then took over the Metropolitan stopping services between Wembley Park and Finchley Road and the Stanmore branch.

To handle the exceptional passenger numbers associated with the 1948 Olympics held at Wembley stadium, the original station building was extended and given a new ticket hall and additional circulation routes and platform stairs.

At the opening of the Jubilee Line on 1 May 1979, the Bakerloo service from Baker Street to Stanmore was transferred to the new line.

In conjunction with the reconstruction of Wembley stadium, the station was again modified. Additional facilities were provided to handle event crowds and a more direct access route to the stadium was constructed.

Operations

The station currently has six London Underground tracks, with the two Jubilee Line tracks in the centre flanked in turn by the Slow and Fast Metropolitan Line tracks. Fast trains call at the station only during off-peak periods. Both Metropolitan and Jubilee Line trains may start or end their service at the station. Jubilee Line trains that terminate at Wembley Park reverse via sidings between the running lines to the north of the station.

ee also

*List of London Underground stations
*Other stations in Wembley served by London Underground:
**North Wembley
**Wembley Central

Gallery

References

External links

* [http://photos.ltmcollection.org London Transport Museum Photographic Archive]
** ltmcollection|mc/i00006mc.jpg|View of platforms, c. 1921
** ltmcollection|58/9891258.jpg|Station entrance, 1958
** ltmcollection|3l/i000063l.jpg|View of platforms, 1964, showing 1947 platform steps and bridge
** ltmcollection|wn/i0000cwn.jpg|Station building, 1966, showing 1947 extension to left
* [http://www.brent.gov.uk/wembley.nsf/24878f4b00d4f0f68025663c006c7944/dd5ca6a013e7ae5080256c8d0042d582?OpenDocument London Borough of Brent, page on regeneration of station]
* [http://tubephotos.dannycox.me.uk/wembleypark.html More photographs of Wembley Park]
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