Oxford Circus tube station
|
|
Oxford_Circus.jpg
Oxford Circus Tube Station is the London Underground station serving Oxford Circus at the junction of Regent Street and Oxford Street, with entrances on all four corners of the intersection. The station is an interchange between the Central, Victoria and Bakerloo Lines.
On the Central Line it is between Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road, on the Bakerloo line it is between Regent's Park and Piccadilly Circus, and on the Victoria line it is between Green Park and Warren Street. It is in Travelcard Zone 1.
The station opened on the Central London Railway on July 30, 1900, with the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway's platforms opening on March 10, 1906. The two companies had separate surface buildings and lift shafts. The station buildings, which remain today as exits from the station, were constructed on very confined plots each side of Argyll Street on the south side of Oxford Street just to the east of the circus itself. The stations were originally constructed as entirely separate, but connecting passages were swiftly provided at platform level.
Almost from the outset, overcrowding has been a constant problem at the station and it has seen numerous improvements to its facilities and below ground arrangements to deal with this difficulty. Escalators were opened to replace the lifts to the Bakerloo line platforms in 1914 and to the Central Line platforms in 1925. An additional escalator was added in 1928 and new lifts were installed in 1942.
The Victoria Line opened on March 7, 1969. To handle the additional passenger loads a new ticket hall was constructed directly under the road junction. In order to excavate the new ticket hall below the roadway, traffic was diverted for five years (August 1963 to Easter 1968) on to a temporary bridge-like structure known as the "umbrella". Construction of the Victoria Line platforms, the new escalator shafts and the linking passages to the Central Line platforms was carried out from access shafts sunk from nearby Cavendish Square. Cross-platform interchange between the Bakerloo and Victoria lines was provided by constructing the Victoria line platforms parallel to the Bakerloo line ones. With the additional escalators in place, a new one-way circulation scheme was introduced and the remaining lifts were removed.
During renovation works, the station suffered a severe fire in 1984 which burned out one of the platforms.
External links
Detailed article by Mike Horne on the history of the station (http://www.metadyne.co.uk/Oxo.pdf)
Plans of the station after the Victoria Line works
[1] (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7069/ltogmod.jpg) [2] (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7069/ltoggy.gif) [3] (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7069/ltoggyplan.gif)
![[1]](http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7069/ltogmod.jpg){kind=link}
![[2]](http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7069/ltoggy.gif){kind=link}
![[3]](http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7069/ltoggyplan.gif){kind=link}
Template:Start LUL box Template:LUL line Template:LUL line Template:LUL line Template:End box