- Widened Lines
-
City Widened Lines Legend
East Coast Main Line 
Finsbury Park 
Midland Main Line and Thameslink 
Kentish Town 
Northern City Line 
High Speed 1 
St Pancras 
King's Cross1 
York Road curve (closed 1976) 
Hotel curve (closed 1976) 
Farringdon 
Snow Hill Tunnel 
Thameslink Moorgate Branch (closed 2009) Northern City Line 
Barbican 
Moorgate 
Circle Line 1. King's Cross encompasses:
King's Cross mainline station,
King's Cross York Road station,
King's Cross Thameslink, and
King's Cross St. Pancras UndergroundThe Widened Lines (also known as the City Widened Lines) is the name of a group of railway routes that currently form part of the Thameslink network leading from King's Cross/St. Pancras to Moorgate within Central London.
History
After the Metropolitan Railway built the world's first underground railway between Paddington and Farringdon station in January 1863 (now part of the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines), plans to extend the railway to Moorgate were already under development. As part of these plans, an extra set of dual tracks was proposed and built during the late 1860s, opening in 1868.
The Widened Lines were built as a means of allowing through trains between the Great Northern Railway and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway through the Snow Hill tunnel. This running initially allowed two separate routes both northbound and southbound:
- Southbound trains could either travel through the Snow Hill tunnel to Ludgate Viaduct, and then across the River Thames, or proceed into Moorgate.
- Northbound trains could travel onto the GNR lines via King's Cross, or on to the Midland Railway via St Pancras.
The closure of the Snow Hill tunnel to passenger services after 1916 saw these options reduced, with the Widened Lines route terminating at Moorgate. In 1976, services from Finsbury Park to Moorgate via the Widened Lines ended, with these services instead diverted on to the newly acquired Northern City Line, leaving the route via St Pancras as the last remaining element of the network. In 1989, passenger services through the Snow Hill tunnel from Blackfriars restarted, which led to the reduction of services to Moorgate only to peak hours. In 2009, the route into Moorgate closed to allow the platforms at Farringdon station to be extended over the junction as part of the "Thameslink Programme" project. The last passenger train down the Moorgate branch comprised units 319364 and 319365, in "Thameslink Programme" promotional livery. The closed branch remained accessible for empty coaching stock movements until December 2009 when Network Rail removed the track.
External links
- London's Snow Hill Tunnel
- Diagrams showing the Hotel Curve/York Way Curve and Midland connections. These show the development of the various interconnections between the what are now the Circle Line, Thameslink, East Coast Main Line and Midland Main Line in the area underneath King's Cross and St. Pancras.
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