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Railfanning London‘s Railways

Visitors to London who are also transport enthusiasts (‘railfans’) sometimes ask for advice as to the ‘best’ things to see on London’s railway network. This page is part of a guide which aims to answer that question.

If this is the first time you have reached these pages then it is best to go to the Opening Page which sets the scene, explains the difference between the small and the large profile trains, offers advice on the best type of ticket to buy and photography tips.

Alternatively, it is possible to view everything on one page

Jubilee Line

Jubilee line trains use a GoA 2 (Grade of Automation level 2) semi-automatic train control system (STO) whereby the trains travel automatically from station to station but a human train driver is always present at the front of the train, with duties that include door closing and initiating station departure.

Each tube car has eight priority seats. These are located very near the passenger doors and next to floor-ceiling grab rails which some passengers will find useful when they try to stand up when arriving at their destination station.

Jubilee line trains feature several different designs of priority seat upholstery. Some are plain, some include a pictogram of the various groups of passengers for whom these seats are intended and some include a few words encouraging other passengers to give up that seat / sit elsewhere if they see a passenger who would benefit from a priority seat. There are six different messages:-

Please offer this seat
Be prepared to offer this seat
Please give up this seat

Someone may need this seat more
Not all disabilities are visible
This is a priority seat

The seating bays (in the middle of the tube cars) with the multi-user spaces do not have any priority seats, however on some tube cars the bum rests also feature the priority seat fabric.

Sometimes different priority seat styles can be seen in different tube cars within the same train.

Open air Stanmore - Finchley Road and Canning Town - Stratford.
The rest is underground.

Click map to see larger version in a new window!

Jubilee line Part 1: The section from Stanmore to Wembley Park opened in 1932, originally as part of the Metropolitan Railway.

Between Wembley Park and Finchley Road the route is shared with the Metropolitan line and Chiltern Railways services from Marylebone station; there is more information about this on the Shared Service Routes page.

Jubilee line Part 2: The section between Finchley Road and Baker Street opened in 1939. This was built because the existing Metropolitan Railway route between these two stations could not cope with the number of trains using it and a solution was found in building a new route for small-profile tube trains from Finchley Road to reach the Bakerloo line at Baker Street, and then use the Bakerloo line to replace Metropolitan line trains to Stanmore.

St Johns Wood station is especially feted for its architecture and the distinctive 1930's 'uplighter' lights in the escalator shaft. A short walk from this station is Abbey Road, where there is a famous (music) recording studio and zebra crossing as used by the Beatles pop group on the cover of one of their records.

Jubilee line Part 3: As part of a plan to build a new Underground line to south-east London and improve the service on the Bakerloo line a new section of railway was built on a new alignment from Baker Street to Charing Cross via Bond Street and Green Park stations. This opened in 1979 and became known as the Jubilee line. At the same time the new service took over the Bakerloo line route between Baker Street and Stanmore. The tunnels actually extend from Charing Cross towards Aldwych, which was planned to be the next station.

Jubilee line Part 4: The Jubilee line route between Green Park and Stratford opened in 1999 and is known as the Jubilee Line Extension (JLE). Because it was decided that this extension should follow a route via Waterloo station and the south of the River Thames (instead of the previously planned route via Charing Cross and Aldwych stations) the Jubilee line platforms at Charing Cross are no longer used. However trains still sometimes travel to Charing Cross station, albeit only to reverse direction of travel when there is disruption to the service. Passengers are not allowed to travel on these trains. The closed platforms are also often used as 'London' locations by the film (movie) industry, eg: James Bond.

The subterranean JLE stations (Westminster - North Greenwich) have full-height platform edge doors so photographing trains is 'not easy'. However many of these stations have been feted for their architectural merit, especially Westminster, Southwark, Bermondsey and North Greenwich.

Westminster station has won many awards for its architecture and therefore is also of interest to many people who have no interest in trains. However in many ways it probably would have been better had this station not won these awards, because whilst the station staff will happily use their extensive CCTV surveillance cameras to watch over every part of the station (from their control room) they very much dislike passengers using their cameras to take photographs at this station.

The Jubilee line part of Westminster station includes a large box-shaped hole that was dug out of the ground in which there are many sets of escalators between the different levels. The Jubilee line platforms are stacked one on top of the other, plus there are different escalators for people entering / leaving the station and people changing trains between the Jubilee and District / Circle lines. The flying buttresses, grey concrete walls and tap-tap sounds echoing off the walls as people walk on the metal footplate flooring creates the impression of what being in a space station could be like.

The main exit at Canary Wharf station has a bank of five escalators (which lead to an open-air piazza) plus several side exits which lead into an underground shopping and restaurant city. Built in reclaimed docklands the Canary Wharf area has become London's second financial district and everything is very modern. The shopping centre is open every day, and there are free toilets / washrooms / restrooms. The area above the station has been transformed into a very pleasant small city park with seats and water features.

The station nearest to the Millennium Dome (which nowadays is known as the O2) is North Greenwich. This is also a very busy interchange station with many bus routes that extend to many destinations in south-east London. When the Elizabeth line (Crossrail line 1) stations at Woolwich and Abbey Wood open some bus passengers are expected to use the new service instead.

North Greenwich station has three platforms. This is because it was meant to be a junction from where a new section of railway would be built to a remote part of south-east London that does not have any railway stations (Thamesmead). However it is now unlikely that this extension will be built. This is mainly because the route to Stratford is now so busy that to divert trains away from Stratford station (to Thamesmead) would leave the Stratford route severely overcrowded. Instead the Elizabeth line (Crossrail line 1) station at Abbey Wood will serve Thamesmead.

Between Canning Town and Stratford the route is shared with Docklands Light Railway trains. The DLR is on the eastern side of the Jubilee line. On the western side there is a large depot (between West Ham and Stratford). There is more information about this on the Shared Service Routes page.

At busy times trains often queue to enter Stratford. This could be because at busy times the train service is so frequent that it needs more platforms.

The Jubilee line is also looked at in the Stratford station section of the page about busier stations in zones 1-4.