Hammersmith & City line
Pink on the map: 29 stations from Hammersmith to Barking, skirting the City and sharing every station with another line.
About the Hammersmith & City line
The Hammersmith & City line runs from Hammersmith in west London to Barking in the east, serving 29 stations over 15.8 miles (25.5 km). It is coloured pink on the tube map. Between Farringdon and Aldgate East it passes along the edge of the City of London, which gives the line the second half of its name.
West of Paddington it runs largely on a brick viaduct through Shepherd’s Bush Market, Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park, then beside the Great Western Main Line into Paddington. Below ground through Baker Street and King’s Cross St Pancras, it reaches Liverpool Street before heading east through Whitechapel, Mile End and West Ham to Barking, running parallel to the London, Tilbury and Southend line for the final stretch.
Every station on the line is shared with another: the Circle from Hammersmith to Baker Street, the Circle and Metropolitan from Baker Street to Liverpool Street, and the District from Aldgate East to Barking. Only a short section between Liverpool Street and Aldgate East is the Hammersmith & City’s alone. In 2024 its busiest station was King’s Cross St Pancras, with 77.13 million entries and exits, followed by Liverpool Street with 61.2 million.
Hammersmith & City line stations
29 stations, 29 of them with a change to another tube line (marked with a navy ring and the colours of the other lines).
Hammersmith (Circle and H&C lines) to Barking
Main route, 29 stations
History
The line’s central section began as the world’s first underground railway. The Metropolitan Railway opened it on 10 January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon, using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives and built mostly by cut-and-cover under the New Road. The Hammersmith and City Railway, backed by the Metropolitan and the Great Western Railway, followed on 13 June 1864, running on a viaduct largely across open fields to the growing suburbs of Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith. In 1867 it became jointly owned by the two companies.
Eastward extensions came in stages. A terminus opened at Aldgate on 18 November 1876, and in October 1884 some Hammersmith trains were extended over the East London Railway to New Cross. The line was electrified in 1906, which required a dedicated power station at Park Royal. After the Metropolitan Railway became part of the London Passenger Transport Board on 1 July 1933, some trains were diverted to Barking from 1936 to relieve congestion on the District east of Whitechapel. Steel O Stock replaced the 1906 wooden trains from 1937, and aluminium C Stock arrived from 1970.
For most of its life the route appeared on the tube map as part of the Metropolitan line. It was redesignated as a separate line, coloured pink, in 1990. Since December 2009, when work on Whitechapel station for Crossrail took its reversing platforms out of use, all trains have run through to Plaistow or Barking.
The present trains arrived in 2012: the first S7 Stock train entered service on 6 July 2012 on a shuttle between Hammersmith and Moorgate, and ran through to Barking from 9 December 2012. By March 2014 the whole service used the new stock. A programme to upgrade the signalling, and with it peak capacity, began in 2015.
Trains and service
TfL lists a single route pattern, Hammersmith to Barking, so every train covers the whole line; the journey takes one hour off-peak. Inbound departures from Barking begin at 05:02 on weekdays and Saturdays, with the last at 23:59, and on Sundays run from 06:27 to 22:59, with 7 trains in the busiest hour on all three day types. From Hammersmith the first weekday train is at 05:03 and the last at 00:22 (Saturday the same, Sunday 06:50 to 23:59), again with 7 in the busiest hour. Check our tube times for other stations.
There is no Night Tube on the Hammersmith & City line. Interchanges include the Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines at King’s Cross St Pancras, the Central line at Liverpool Street and Mile End, and the Jubilee line and DLR at West Ham.
The trains
Services are provided by seven-car S7 Stock, part of Bombardier’s Movia family. Because the line is sub-surface, with tunnels just below ground and similar in size to main-line ones, the trains can be air-conditioned – the shallow tunnels disperse the hot air in a way deep tube tunnels cannot. They reach 62 mph (100 km/h), carry 865 passengers against 739 on the six-car C Stock they replaced, and at 117 metres are 24 metres longer, so platforms were extended. Regenerative brakes return around 20 per cent of their energy to the network. The depot is at Hammersmith, built by the Great Western Railway when the joint line was electrified, with overnight sidings at Barking and near High Street Kensington.
Frequently asked questions
The name comes from the Hammersmith and City Railway, which opened in 1864 from Paddington to Hammersmith. The line still runs from Hammersmith, and between Farringdon and Aldgate East it skirts the City of London, the capital’s financial district.
In 1990. Until then it was shown on the tube map as part of the Metropolitan line. After the split the Metropolitan became the route from Aldgate and Baker Street to Uxbridge, Watford and Amersham, while the Hammersmith & City got its own pink colour, launched with the release of several hundred pink balloons.
The full journey from Hammersmith to Barking takes one hour off-peak, calling at all 29 stations. Every train runs the whole route, and TfL’s timetable shows 7 trains in the busiest hour from each end on weekdays.
No. There is no Night Tube on this line. The last weekday train leaves Hammersmith at 00:22, and the last inbound departure from Barking is at 23:59 on weekdays and Saturdays (22:59 on Sundays). See our Night Tube guide for overnight alternatives.
East of Liverpool Street the line shares every station with the District: Aldgate East, Whitechapel, Stepney Green, Mile End, Bow Road, Bromley-by-Bow, West Ham, Plaistow, Upton Park, East Ham and Barking. The two lines also share Edgware Road.