When is a Circle not a Circle Line?

The Circle Line – that’s the one in yellow on the tube map – has never really been a circle. It’s more a sort of squashed rectangle. But the principle was the thing – it was a line that ran round and round and round and round. You could fall asleep at Monument and miss your station, and eventually it would come round again.

Tube maps have differed over time... now for another change

A reorganisation of the Tube is changing all that. The Circle Line is now taking over the little stub of Metropolitan line that sticks out towards Hammersmith.  And instead of going round and round and round, trains will stop at Edgware Road on the clockwise spin, so going from Paddington to King’s Cross, for  instance, will involve a change of train.

Because of the way the Circle Line shares routes with other lines, there will be a knock-on impact on the Hammersmith & City Line in East London. (Basically, the extra Circle Line ‘loop’ to Hammersmith will mean fewer H&C trains on that part of the track.)  If you’re heading to Aldgate East, Mile End,  and Barking, because the Circle Line will be running more trains, there will be fewer Metropolitan Line trains per hour.

I’m sure the new proposals have been thought through; it’s always been a problem on the Circle Line that since it doesn’t have a terminus, and trains run in loops, any train that breaks down causes horrendous backups in service. But I shall miss the ability to ride all the way round the Circle. Maybe I should try to get it done before the changeover at the end of December.

By the way, the Circle Line has an illustrious history – and it’s older than I’d realised. The first part, between Farringdon and Paddington, dates from the 1850s, andthe full circuit was completed in 1884.

picture by Annie Mole on flickr