Finchley Road

 

The station was opened on 30 June 1879 by the Metropolitan Railway (MR, now the Metropolitan line) on its extension from its now closed station at St. John's Wood (a different station from the current St. John's Wood Jubilee line station). The station was rebuilt in 1914 with entrances incorporated into a new parade of shops. By the mid-1930s the Metropolitan line was suffering from congestion on its main routes from NW London, caused by the limited capacity of its tracks between Finchley Road and Baker Street stations. To alleviate this congestion new sections of deep tube tunnels were bored between Finchley Road and Baker Street to carry some of the traffic from the Stanmore branch and stations south of Wembley Park. These new tunnels opened on 20 November 1939 and from that date Finchley Road station was also served by Bakerloo line trains running from Baker Street using the new tunnels. The Bakerloo line services were subsequently transferred to the Jubilee line when that line commenced operation on 1 May 1979.

 

The station is adjacent to the O2 Shopping Centre. It serves the Frognal and South Hampstead areas. It is also a five-minute walk from the Finchley Road & Frognal station on the London Overground's North London Line, and this is marked as an official out-of-system interchange. Finchley Road was also the name of a nearby Midland Railway station which closed in 1927. The remains of these platforms are visible from Thameslink trains running on the Midland Main Line. Analysis of earth removed when tunnelling towards the station revealed that its site was the southern limit of a glacier which covered Britain in one of the Ice Ages. The station has cash machines, Euro cash machines, a waiting room, bridge and toilets.

 

Connections: Jubilee Line. London Buses routes 13, 82, 113, 187, 268 and C11 and night routes N13 and N113 serve the station.

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