The Metropolitan District Railway, also known as the District Railway, was a passenger railway that served London, England, from 1868 to 1933. Established in 1864 to complete an "inner circle" of lines connecting railway termini in London, the first part of the line opened using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives. The Metropolitan Railway operated all services until the District Railway introduced its own trains in 1871. The railway was soon extended westwards through Earl's Court to Fulham, Richmond, Ealing and Hounslow. After completing the inner circle and reaching Whitechapel in 1884, it was extended to Upminster in Essex in 1902.
To finance electrification at the beginning of the 20th century, American financier Charles Yerkes took it over and made it part of his Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) group. Electric propulsion was introduced in 1905, and by the end of the year electric multiple units operated all of the services. On 1 July 1933, the District Railway and the other UERL railways were merged with the Metropolitan Railway and the capital's tramway and bus operators to form the London Passenger Transport Board.
Today, former District Railway tracks and stations are used by the London Underground's District, Piccadilly and Circle lines.
History
Origins, 1863–1886
Inner Circle In 1863, the Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) opened the world's first underground railway. The line was built from Paddington beneath the New Road, connecting the main line railway termini at , and King's Cross. Then it followed Farringdon Road to a station at Farringdon Street in Smithfield, near the capital's financial heart in the City.
The Met's early success prompted a flurry of applications to Parliament in 1863 for new railways in London, many competing for similar routes. The House of Lords established a select committee that recommended an "inner circuit of railway that should abut, if not actually join, nearly all of the principal railway termini in the Metropolis". For the 1864 parliamentary session, railway schemes were presented that met the recommendation in varying ways and a joint committee composed of members of both Houses of Parliament reviewed the options.
Proposals to extend west and then south from Paddington to South Kensington and east from Moorgate to Tower Hill were accepted and received royal assent on 29 July 1864 in the Metropolitan Railway (Notting Hill and Brompton Extension) Act 1864 (27 & 28 Vict. c. ccxci) and the Metropolitan Railway (Tower Hill Extension) Act 1864 (27 & 28 Vict. c. cccxv) respectively. To complete the circuit, the committee encouraged the amalgamation of two other schemes proposed to run via different routes between Kensington and the City and a combined proposal under the name Metropolitan District Railway passed into law on the same day in the (27 & 28 Vict. c. cccxxii). Initially, the District and the Met were closely associated and it was intended that they would soon merge. The Met's chairman and three other directors were on the board of the District, John Fowler was the engineer of both companies and the construction works for all of the extensions were let as a single contract. The District was established as a separate company to enable funds to be raised independently of the Met.
Unlike the Metropolitan, the route did not follow an easy alignment under existing roads and land values were higher, so compensation payments for property were much higher. Major landowners, including Lord Kensington, sold parcels of land to the railway company. To ensure ventilation, the line west of Gloucester Road was carried in open cuttings, the rest mainly in a cut and cover tunnel wide and deep; at the stations the platform ends were left open. Construction costs and compensation payments were so high that the cost of the first section of the District from South Kensington to Westminster was £3 million, almost three times the cost of the Met's original, longer line. On 24 December 1868, the District opened its line from South Kensington to Westminster, with stations at South Kensington, Sloane Square, Victoria, St James's Park and Westminster Bridge (now Westminster), the Met extending eastwards from Brompton to a shared station at South Kensington on the same day.
The District also had parliamentary permission to extend westward from Brompton (Gloucester Road) station and, on 12 April 1869, it opened a single track line from there to West Brompton on the West London Railway. There were no intermediate stations and this service initially operated as a shuttle. By summer 1869 additional tracks had been laid between South Kensington and Brompton (Gloucester Road) and from Kensington (High Street) to a junction with the line to West Brompton. During the night of 5 July 1870 the District secretly built the disputed Cromwell Curve connecting Brompton (Gloucester Road) and Kensington (High Street). East of Westminster, the next section ran in the newly constructed Victoria Embankment built by the Metropolitan Board of Works along the north bank of the River Thames. The line was opened from Westminster to Blackfriars on 30 May 1870 with stations at Charing Cross (now Embankment), The Temple (now Temple) and Blackfriars.
The Met initially operated all services, receiving 55 per cent of the gross receipts for a fixed level of service. The District were also charged for any extra trains and the District's share of the income dropped to about 40 per cent. The District's level of debt meant that merger was no longer attractive to the Met and its directors resigned from the District's board. To improve its finances, the District gave the Met notice to terminate the operating agreement. Struggling under the burden of high construction costs, the District was unable to continue with the original scheme to reach Tower Hill and made a final extension of its line one station further east from Blackfriars to a previously unplanned City terminus at Mansion House.
On Saturday 1 July 1871, an opening banquet was attended by prime minister William Gladstone, who was also a shareholder. The following Monday, Mansion House opened and the District began running its own trains. From this date, the two companies operated a joint inner circle service between Mansion House and Moorgate Street via South Kensington and Edgware Road that ran every ten minutes. This was supplemented by a District service every ten minutes between Mansion House and West Brompton, and Hammersmith & City Railway and Great Western Railway (GWR) suburban services between Edgware Road and Moorgate Street. The permissions for the railway east of Mansion House were allowed to lapse. At the other end of the line, the District part of South Kensington station opened on 10 July 1871 and Earl's Court station opened on the West Brompton extension on 30 October 1871.
West to Putney Bridge, Richmond, Ealing and Hounslow The District Railway's main expansion was to the west. A small station at Earl's Court, between Gloucester Road and West Brompton, opened on 31 October 1871 with three platforms. Lillie Bridge depot, opened in 1872, was built parallel to the West London Joint Railway and initially accessed by a curve onto the West London Line. This curve allowed, from 1 February 1872, the London & North Western Railway (L&NWR) to run a half-hourly outer circle service from Broad Street to Mansion House via , Addison Road and Earls Court. From 1 October 1872, the GWR also ran a half-hourly middle circle service from the Met's Moorgate Street station to Mansion House via Paddington and Earl's Court.
Permission to build a railway long to Hammersmith was granted in the (36 & 37 Vict. c. cxxxi) on 7 July 1873, the independent having been formed to raise the necessary capital. The new line started from a junction on the curve to Addison Road and also allowed easier access to Lillie Bridge Depot. It opened on 9 September 1874 with one intermediate station at North End (Fulham) (renamed West Kensington in 1877) and a terminus at Hammersmith, and was served by through trains to Mansion House. West Brompton was now served by a shuttle to Earl's Court. The Hammersmith Extension Railway was absorbed by the District Railway via the (37 & 38 Vict. c. xxxii). Earl's Court station burnt down in 1875 and a larger replacement with four tracks and two island platforms opened on 1 February 1878. This was sited to the west of the original station; to the east of the station a flying junction was built to separate traffic to Kensington (High Street) and from Gloucester Road.
In December 1876, six trains per hour ran on the inner circle between Mansion House and Aldgate. The District operated four trains per hour from Mansion House to Hammersmith. Also leaving every hour from Mansion House were two GWR middle circle services to Aldgate via Addison Road and two L&NWR services to Broad Street via Willesden Junction. Three services an hour travelled between West Brompton and Earl's Court.
In 1864 the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) had obtained permission for the Kensington and Richmond line. The route headed north from Addison Road on the West London Railway before curving round to serve Hammersmith at a station at (linked to the Hammersmith & City Railway station by footbridge), Turnham Green, Brentford Road (Gunnersbury from 1871) and Kew Gardens and Richmond. The line opened on 1 January 1869, the L&SWR running services from Waterloo and Ludgate Hill via Addison Road, and the L&NWR running services from Broad Street to Richmond from a link at Brentford Road to the North London Line at South Acton. Stations opened on the line at Shaftesbury Road (Ravenscourt Park from 1888) and Shepherds Bush on 1 May 1874.
In 1875 permission was given for a link from the District station at Hammersmith to a junction just east of Ravenscourt Park. As the L&SWR line was on a viaduct and the District line in a cutting, the line rose steeply. On 1 June 1877, the Hammersmith branch was extended to Richmond, initially with a service of one train an hour to Mansion House. The Met and GWR Hammersmith & City line had access by a link just north of their Hammersmith station and diverted a service to Richmond from 1 October 1877.
From 1 May 1878 to 30 September 1880, the Midland Railway operated a circular service from to Earl's Court via Dudding Hill, Acton and the L&SWR to Hammersmith. In 1879 the District opened a junction west of L&SWR's Turnham Green station for a line to Ealing. With stations at Acton Green (now Chiswick Park), Mill Hill Park (now Acton Town), Ealing Common and Ealing Broadway, the Ealing station was built just north of the GWR station. On 4 July 1878, permission was granted to extend the West Brompton branch as far as the Thames. Stations opened at Walham Green (now Fulham Broadway), Parsons Green. The line terminated at Putney Bridge & Fulham (now Putney Bridge). The line opened on 1 March 1880, in time for the University Boat Race held that year on 22 March. Initially the service was two trains an hour to Mansion House, supplemented from 1 April by two trains an hour to High Street Kensington.