We’re going Underground!

Mind the Stat!

Photo by Robert Likovszki on Unsplash

The London underground is the world’s oldest underground rail network

The first line opened in January 1863 as the Metropolitan Railway with 6 stations serving the North side of central London, including:

• Paddington
• Baker Street
• Portland Street (now Great Portland Street)
• Gower Street (now Euston Square)
• King’s Cross (now King’s Cross St. Pancras)
• Farringdon Street (now Farringdon)

A further 2 lines (District and Circle) were added before the world’s first deep tunnel underground line which was added in 1890 between King William Street, near Monument station, and Stockwell. Since then a further 8 lines have been added

The whole network was then merged with all bus and trams lines into a single company, the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB), in 1933 before being nationalised in 1947. It was only in 2003 that TFL officially took over running of the network

So how expansive has the “tube” become?

How big is London’s underground network?

The London underground has 272 stations across its 11 lines and over 400km of track, plus 3 additional rail lines that technically fall outside of the tube network (DLR with 45 stations, the Overground with 113 and the Elizabeth line with 41)

The network runs across 9 concentric zones, the most central of which is Zone 1 which covers 17 sq miles (45 km2)

The District line has the most stops with 60, but this does mean it’s the longest. The Central line has the longest track with 74km from East to West (including the loop around Woodford)

You won’t be surprised that the Waterloo & City line is the shortest with only two stations and 2.37km of track between them. But the Waterloo & City line is one of two lines that runs completely underground. What’s the other one? See if you can work it out (see the answer at the bottom¹)

If you’re looking for the longest distance between two stations then look for the Metropolitan Line. The track between Chesham and Chalfont & Latimer Park is longer than between any other at 6.3km (taking roughly 8.5 minutes), taking roughly 1.5 hours to walk between these stations²

What else do you need to know about the Tube Network:

• There are over 200 passenger lifts across the network with the deepest at Hampsted (55 metres) and the shallowest at King’s Cross St Pancras (only 2.3 metres!!)
• On top of this, there are 450+ escalators with the longest at Angel (60 metres) and the shortest at Stratford (yes, only 4 metres!!). Waterloo has the most with 23
• The Hammersmith & City line is the only one to share all of its 29 stations with another line
• The stations with the shortest distance between them are Covent Garden and Leicester Square. The 0.3km actually takes less time to walk if you include the time to get in and out of the stations

How many people use the network?

The tube is one of the most used transport networks in the world

In the year up to April 2020, 1.3 billion journeys were made, substantially higher than the 970 million journeys made in 2000/01

However, COVID has not been kind to TFL:

• There was a 77% drop in users between 2020 and 2021, down to 296 million journeys, or 23% of ridership pre-pandemic
• To put this in financial terms, the tube earned £2.7 billion in the year to April 2020, but only £650 million a year later
• While up-to-date data is hard to find, by January 2022 ridership had improved to 60% of pre-pandemic levels but wasn’t close to returning to normal

In terms of which parts of the network (before the pandemic) were most popular, or busy…

• The most popular line (also known as the most congested) is the Northern Line with 294 million annual users
• Depending on the year, and the source, King’s Cross St Pancras and Waterloo are the busist stations with roughly 100 million passengers going through their gates each year

How does this compare to other underground networks?

While London’s network is big, its not the biggest underground in the world. That feat goes to New York City which has 424 stations (most of which are 24/7)

But neither New York or London get as many riders as the largest metros in China. Both Beijing and Shanghai typically get 10 million riders a day, or 3.7 billion a year

Note¹: yes, its the Victoria Line. Only 5% of the District Line, by comparison, is actually underground

Note²: Wembley Park and Finchley Park, also on the Metropolitan Line, are technically further apart, but the same two stations on the Jubilee have a number of other stations in between

Check out more GoodStats on Britain:

• Liz talk about London’s new route; No one is cross (or railing) about the Elizabeth line anymore
• The BBC — a timeless British institution…but can it get back with the times?
• Queuing for the Queen; In Memory of her Majesty

Source: Londontopia; BBC; London Tube Map; Britain Visitor; David Lew Blog; Statista; Winterville; Metro; TFL; Statista; Secret London; Londonist; My London News; Telegraph; Pick VISA;