Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 15, 2010

The Central London Railway (CLR), also known as the Twopenny Tube, was a railway company established in 1889 to construct a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London. Funding for construction was obtained in 1895 through a syndicate of financiers and work took place from 1896 to 1900. When opened in 1900, the CLR served 13 stations and ran completely underground in a pair of tunnels for 9.14 km between its western terminus at Shepherd's Bush and its eastern terminus at the Bank of England, with a depot and power station to the north of the western terminus. After a rejected proposal to turn the line into a loop, it was extended at the western end to Wood Lane in 1908 and at the eastern end to Liverpool Street station in 1912. In 1920, it was extended along a Great Western Railway line to Ealing to serve a total distance of 17.57 km. After initially making good returns for investors, the CLR suffered a decline in passenger numbers due to increased competition from other underground railway lines and new motorised buses, leading in 1913 to its take-over by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL), operator of the majority of London's underground railways. In 1933 the CLR was taken into public ownership along with the UERL. Today, the CLR's tunnels and stations form the central section of the London Underground's Central line.