Metropolitan line
The Met runs from Aldgate in the City out to Amersham, Chesham, Watford and Uxbridge, with fast trains in the weekday peaks.
About the Metropolitan line
The Metropolitan line, usually shortened to the Met, is the magenta line on the tube map. It serves 34 stations and is the Underground’s long-distance commuter route: from Aldgate in the City of London it heads north-west through Middlesex suburbs and over the Greater London boundary to Amersham and Chesham in Buckinghamshire, with further branches to Watford in Hertfordshire and Uxbridge in Hillingdon. Every TfL route pattern on the line starts or ends at Aldgate.
The inner section is below ground. Between Aldgate and Baker Street the Met shares tracks with the Circle line, calling at Liverpool Street, Moorgate, Farringdon, King’s Cross St Pancras and Euston Square. North of Baker Street it stays in tunnel to Finchley Road, then runs non-stop to Wembley Park on tracks beside the Jubilee line, which serves the stations in between. The line splits at Harrow-on-the-Hill for Uxbridge, at Moor Park for Watford and at Chalfont & Latimer for the single-track Chesham branch.
Most of the route north of Finchley Road is above ground, built to a loading gauge similar to main-line railways, and the gaps between stations are far longer than elsewhere on the tube. King’s Cross St Pancras (77.13 million entries and exits in 2024) and Liverpool Street (61.2 million) are the busiest stations it serves.
Metropolitan line stations
34 stations, 18 of them with a change to another tube line (marked with a navy ring and the colours of the other lines).
Amersham to Aldgate
Main route, 23 stations
Branch from Uxbridge
Rejoins at Harrow-on-the-Hill
History
The line descends from the Metropolitan Railway, which opened on 10 January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon as the world’s first underground railway. It was built by cut-and-cover beneath the New Road, and its gas-lit wooden carriages were hauled by steam locomotives at three trains an hour, rising to four in the peaks.
The company soon pushed north-west via a branch from Baker Street. Harrow was reached in 1880, and the line ultimately ran as far as Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire, more than 50 miles from Baker Street. Electric multiple units began running between Uxbridge, Harrow-on-the-Hill and Baker Street in 1905, and from 1908 electric locomotives were exchanged for steam at Harrow on longer journeys. Unusually, the Met developed land for housing beside its tracks and, after the First World War, promoted those estates as “Metro-land”. A short branch from Rickmansworth to Watford opened in 1925.
On 1 July 1933 the Metropolitan was absorbed into the London Passenger Transport Board, which preferred electric suburban services to steam and goods traffic. All services north-west of Aylesbury were withdrawn by 1936. The bottleneck between Baker Street and Finchley Road was relieved by new tube tunnels, and in 1939 the stopping service and the Stanmore branch passed to the Bakerloo line, becoming part of the Jubilee line in 1979. After the war the main line was rebuilt between 1956 and 1962: steam locomotives were attached at Rickmansworth until 1961, when electrification reached Amersham and the Aylesbury trains passed to British Railways, and by 1962 a pair of fast lines ran from Harrow to north of Moor Park.
The Met gained its present shape on the map gradually. The East London line was shown as part of it until 1968, and in 1990 the Hammersmith & City line appeared as a separate line, leaving the Met as Aldgate to Amersham with branches to Chesham, Uxbridge and Watford. Infrastructure was handed to the Metronet consortium in 2003; after Metronet entered administration in 2007, Transport for London took over. On 12 December 2010 direct Chesham to central London trains replaced the old Chesham shuttle, while Amersham’s service fell from four trains an hour to two.
Trains and service
TfL runs four route patterns, all to Aldgate: from Amersham, Chesham, Uxbridge and Watford. Some southbound trains finish at Baker Street rather than continuing into the City. From Aldgate the first train on weekdays and Fridays is at 06:16 and the last at 00:13; Saturdays run from 06:18 to 00:13, and Sundays from 07:38 to 23:59. At the other end, the first weekday departure from Amersham is at 05:22 and the last at 00:50. In the busiest hour, 16 trains leave Aldgate on weekdays and Fridays and 12 on Saturdays and Sundays, while Amersham sees five. There is no Night Tube on the Met. Check the tube times page before a late journey.
Useful interchanges include Baker Street (Bakerloo, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Jubilee lines), King’s Cross St Pancras, Liverpool Street (Central line, Elizabeth line and Overground), Farringdon for the Elizabeth line, and Finchley Road and Wembley Park for the Jubilee line. Between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge the Piccadilly line uses the same tracks, and National Rail connects at Harrow-on-the-Hill, Rickmansworth, Chorleywood, Chalfont & Latimer and Amersham.
The trains
Every Met service is worked by eight-car S Stock trains from Bombardier’s Movia family, which entered service between 2010 and 2012 in place of the A Stock that had run since 1961. There are 58 S8 Stock trains, plus one eight-car S7 unit known as the ‘S7+1’, which keeps the all-longitudinal seating of the seven-car S7 trains used on the other sub-surface lines. They are air-conditioned, which is possible because the shallow sub-surface tunnels can disperse the hot air, and their regenerative brakes return around 20% of their energy to the network. Compared with the A Stock they have fewer seats, 306 against 448, but room for 697 standing passengers against 597, plus dedicated wheelchair space. Their top speed of 62 mph (100 km/h), reached on the long sections north of Finchley Road, is the highest of any Underground train. The fleet is maintained at Neasden depot.