Baker Street tube station

This article is about the London Underground station on Baker Street. For other uses, see Baker Street (disambiguation).

Baker Street

Station entrance
Baker Street Location of Baker Street in Central London
Location	Marylebone
Local authority	City of Westminster
Managed by	London Underground
Number of platforms	10
Fare zone	1
Interchange	Marylebone (National Rail)
London Underground annual entry and exit
2008	24.610 million
2009	25.637 million
2010	26.280 million
1863 (1863)	Opened (MR)
1868	Opened (MR platforms to north)
1906	Opened (BS&WR, as terminus)
1907	Extended (BSWR - Marylebone)
1939	Started (Bakerloo to Stanmore)
1961	Ended (Met to Aylesbury)
1979	Ended (Bakerloo to Stanmore)
1979	Started (Jubilee Line)
1990	Ended (Met to H'smith/Barking)
1990	Started (Hammersmith & City)
Lists of stations	DLR · Underground · National Rail · Tramlink

Baker Street tube station is a station on the London Underground at the junction of Baker Street and the Marylebone Road. The station lies in Travelcard Zone 1 and is served by five different lines. It is one of the original stations of the Metropolitan Railway (MR), the world's first underground railway, opened in 1863.

On the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines it is between Great Portland Street and Edgware Road. On the Metropolitan line it is between Great Portland Street and Finchley Road. On the Bakerloo line it is between Regent's Park and Marylebone, and on the Jubilee line it is between Bond Street and St. John's Wood.

Location

The station is located on Baker Street (Bakerloo and Jubilee), Chiltern Street (Circle and Hammersmith & City, ticket holders only, others may enter via Metropolitan station) and Marylebone Road (Metropolitan) in Marylebone, London. Nearby attractions include Regents Park, Lord's Cricket Ground, and Madame Tussauds.

History

Main ticket hall

Baker Street roundel

Baker Street station was opened by the MR on 10 January 1863 (these platforms are now served by the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines). On 13 April 1868, the MR opened the first section of Metropolitan and St John's Wood Railway as a branch from its existing route. This line, serving the open-air platforms, was steadily extended to Willesden Green and northwards, finally reaching Aylesbury Town and Verney Junction (some 50 miles/80 km from Baker Street) in 1892. The MR station mainly competed for traffic with Euston, where the LNWR provided local services to Middlesex and Watford, and later with Marylebone, where the GCR provided expresses to Aylesbury and beyond on the same line.

Over the next few decades this section of the station was extensively rebuilt to provide four platforms. The current Metropolitan line layout largely dates from 1925, and the bulk of the surface buildings, designed by architect Charles Clark, also date from this period.

The Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (BS&WR, now the Bakerloo line) opened on 10 March 1906; Baker Street was the temporary northern terminus of the line until it was extended to Marylebone station on 27 March 1907. The original station building stood on Baker Street and served the tube platforms with lifts, but these were supplemented with escalators in 1914, linking the Metropolitan line and the Bakerloo line platforms by a new concourse excavated under the Metropolitan line.

On 20 November 1939, following the construction of an additional southbound platform and connecting tube tunnels between Baker Street and Finchley Road stations, the Bakerloo line took over the Metropolitan line's stopping services between Finchley Road and Wembley Park and its Stanmore branch. The current Bakerloo ticket hall and escalators to the lower concourse were provided in conjunction with the new service. The Jubilee line added an extra northbound platform and replaced the Bakerloo line service to Stanmore from its opening on 1 May 1979.

On 23 August 1973, a bomb was found in a carrier bag in the ticket hall.^{[citation needed]} The bomb was defused by the bomb squad. A week later, on 30 August, a member of staff found another bomb left on the overbridge. Again, it was defused without any injury.

Today

Unique tile-work in this station, commemorates the fictional Sherlock Holmes's association with Baker Street

A Hammersmith and City Line train to Barking arrives at Baker Street's oldest platforms

Of the MR's original stations, the sub-surface Circle and Hammersmith and City line platforms are the best preserved. Plaques along the platform show old plans and photographs of the station.

The station layout is rather complex. The sub-surface station is connected to the open-air Metropolitan line station. This is a terminus for some Metropolitan line trains, but there is also a connecting curve that joins to the Circle line just beyond the platforms that allows Metropolitan line trains to run to Aldgate in the City of London.

Below this is a deep-level tube station for the Bakerloo and Jubilee lines. These are arranged in a cross-platform interchange, and there are connections between the two lines just to the north of the station. With ten platforms overall, Baker Street has the most London Underground platforms of any station on the network.

Outside the Marylebone Road exits, a large statue of Sherlock Holmes commemorates the fictional detective's association with 221B Baker Street. A restoration in the 1980s on the oldest portion of the Baker Street station brought it back to something similar to its 1863 appearance.

The station is operated by the Metropolitan Line management team. Offices of the line are within the vicinity of the station.^{[citation needed]}

Platform lengthening

In order to accommodate the new, longer S stock trains, which started operating certain Metropolitan line services in August 2010, platforms 1 and 4 have been extended.

In popular culture

Workers can be seen excavating Baker Street for the Underground in a scene of the 2011 film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, set in 1891.^{[citation needed]}

Nearby attractions

• Royal Academy of Music
• Madame Tussauds
• Sherlock Holmes Museum

See also

• Baker Street (song) by Gerry Rafferty

Transport links

London bus routes 2, 13, 18, 27, 30, 74, 82, 113, 139, 189, 205, 274, 453 and night route N13, N18 and N74.

External links

• Oldest Portion of Baker Street Station
  • As shown in 1863
  • As shown in 2004 (restoration)[1]
• Photograph of the Jubilee Line platform at Baker Street

Preceding station		London Underground		Following station
Marylebone towards Harrow & Wealdstone		Bakerloo line		Regent's Park towards Elephant & Castle
Edgware Road towards Hammersmith		Circle line		Great Portland Street towards Edgware Road (via Aldgate)
		Hammersmith & City line		Great Portland Street towards Barking
St. John's Wood towards Stanmore		Jubilee line		Bond Street towards Stratford
Finchley Road towards Amersham, Chesham, Uxbridge or Watford		Metropolitan line		Great Portland Street towards Aldgate
				Terminus
		Former services
Preceding station		London Underground		Following station
St. John's Wood towards Stanmore		Bakerloo line Stanmore branch (1939-1979)		Regent's Park towards Elephant & Castle
Lord's towards Amersham, Chesham, Uxbridge or Watford		Metropolitan line		Great Portland Street towards Aldgate
				Terminus