Trivia / The London Underground

• No Budget: The DLR exists because of a mandate from the higher powers that it be built as cheaply as possible. This explains many of its early cost-cutting measures: It not being a new Underground line or an expansion of an existing one, using automated trains, building most of the line on the route of disused freight railways, a complete lack of tunnels, and total architectural uniformity across all of its stations. The final bill for the system came in at a stunning £77 million (about £186 million in 2021), which is a complete bargain for a system of its size. This thankfully worked out for the best, as the system was a massive success right away in terms of both passenger use and its role in redeveloping the Docklands area, and the DLR was allowed much more money for future projects: For comparison a tunnelled single-station extension to Bank was approved almost immediately, which just by itself was £200 million. One reason for this high cost was that the original trains would not have fitted in the tunnel, so new trains were needed.
• What Could Have Been: A few examples.
  • The Mill Hill East stub of the Northern Line was part of the planned Northern Heights extension project in the 1930s. The line was meant to have carried on to Edgware, where it would've merged with the Edgware branch (up to this point, the line itself already existed as an LNER branch line which simply needed electrification), and then continued on northwest to Bushey Heath. Work on the extension from Edgware to Bushey Heath including work on a viaduct and a tunnel started in June 1939, but was stopped after World War II started. The only reason the branch out to Mill Hill East became part of the Northern Line was due to that station's proximity to a large Army barracks. After the war, the area beyond Edgware was made part of the Metropolitan Green Belt, largely preventing the anticipated residential development in the area, and the potential demand for services from Bushey Heath thus vanished. Not to mention, available funds were directed towards repairing bomb damage completing the eastern extension of the Central line instead, so any Northern Heights expansions that had not already been completed (which also included a branch to Alexandra Palace and a line running from Highgate to Finsbury Park) were discontinued — although for several years afterwards, they were shown as being "under construction" on Tube maps.
  • The Jubilee Line was originally going to be known as the Fleet Line until it was decided to give it its current name to denote Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee, although it didn't open until 1979 (two years after the Silver Jubilee).
    • As originally opened, the line ran from Stanmore to Green Park, then turned east to terminate at Charing Cross. Following the line's opening, there were multiple plans towards extending the line onwards from Charing Cross, none of which came to fruitition until 1999.
    • In the first version of the Jubilee Line Extension plan, the line ran from Charing Cross via Aldwych and Ludgate Circus to Fenchurch Street station, then via tunnel under the River Thames to connect to the East London line north of Surrey Docks (now Surrey Quays) from where it would take over East London Line services to New Cross Gate and New Cross with tunnels continuing from the latter to Lewisham. In anticipation of this, the tunnels of the first phase of the line continued eastward from Charing Cross under Strand almost as far as Aldwych.
    • Eventually, in the 1980s, the development of Canary Wharf as a financial centre led to new proposals being floated for extending the Jubilee Line, including what was ultimately built: redirect the line to go from Green Park to Westminster, then following the route of the Waterloo and Greenwich Railway, continuing to Stratford via Canning Town alongside the North London Line. Even so, the approved route underwent some changes. A station was originally planned at Blackwall, but this was replaced by diverting the line between Canary Wharf and Stratford underneath the Thames to serve the Greenwich peninsula at North Greenwich station. Plans for the Millennium Dome did not yet exist, and this diversion was made to provide for a planned housing development on the site of a disused gasworks.
  • On the DLR, Mudchute was originally planned to have the name "Millwall Park", which better describes its general location. The name was changed to avoid association with Millwall FC and the toxic reputation of their supporters at the time, even in spite of the fact that Millwall FC had long been relocated away from the Millwall area.