Northern line
The black line on the map, with two routes through central London joining Edgware, High Barnet and Mill Hill East to Morden and Battersea.
About the Northern line
The Northern line links North London with South London across 52 stations and is drawn in black on the tube map. Its shape is unique on the network. In the north there are two branches, to Edgware and to High Barnet, with a one-station spur from Finchley Central to Mill Hill East; they meet at Camden Town. From there two separate routes cross central London – one through the West End via Charing Cross, the other through the City via Bank – before coming together again at Kennington. South of Kennington the line divides once more, to Morden and to Battersea Power Station.
The Charing Cross branch serves Waterloo, Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road and Warren Street; the Bank branch serves London Bridge, Moorgate, Angel and King’s Cross St Pancras, and both meet at Euston. Waterloo (77.39 million entries and exits in 2024), King’s Cross St Pancras (77.13 million) and Tottenham Court Road (62.06 million) are its busiest stations.
For most of its length the Northern is a deep tube, and 38 of its stations have platforms below ground. Despite the name, it is the line that reaches the Underground’s southernmost station, Morden.
Northern line stations
52 stations, 13 of them with a change to another tube line (marked with a navy ring and the colours of the other lines).
Morden to High Barnet
Main route, 32 stations
Alternative route via Waterloo and Warren Street
Leaves the main route after Kennington; rejoins at Euston
Alternative route via Mornington Crescent
Leaves the main route after Euston; rejoins at Camden Town
Branch to Edgware
Leaves the main route after Camden Town
History
Today’s line joins up two early tube railways. The City & South London Railway opened in November 1890 from Stockwell to King William Street: it was the first Underground line bored deep below the surface and the first worked by electric traction, and its Stockwell to Borough section is still the oldest stretch of deep-level tube on the network. A new route to Moorgate via Bank replaced King William Street in 1900, and by 1907 trains ran from Clapham Common to Euston. Also in 1907 the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway, the “Hampstead Tube”, opened from Strand (now Charing Cross) to Camden Town, with branches to Golders Green and Highgate (now Archway); it reached Charing Cross (now Embankment) in 1914.
The Underground Electric Railways Company of London took over the City & South London in 1913, and in the 1920s the two were physically joined: a Euston to Camden Town tunnel opened in 1924 and an Embankment to Kennington link, with a new station at Waterloo, in 1926. The Hampstead line reached Hendon Central in 1923 and Edgware in 1924, through open country served by pavilion-style stations by Stanley Heaps. In 1926 the extension from Clapham Common to Morden opened, with seven stations designed by Charles Holden.
The combined railway was known as the Morden–Edgware line until 28 August 1937, when it was renamed the Northern line after the Northern Heights plan to take over London and North Eastern Railway branches north of Highgate. Tube trains reached East Finchley on 3 July 1939, High Barnet on 14 April 1940 and Mill Hill East on 18 May 1941. The Second World War stopped the rest of the plan; the Bushey Heath extension was cancelled in 1950.
By the early 1990s years of under-investment had earned it the nickname “Misery Line”. A full refurbishment began in 1995, automatic train operation was switched on in stages between 26 February 2013 and 1 June 2014, and on 20 September 2021 a £1.2bn extension from Kennington to Battersea Power Station, via Nine Elms, opened.
Trains and service
TfL lists eight route patterns. Morden trains run to Edgware, High Barnet or Mill Hill East via either Bank or Charing Cross, while Battersea Power Station trains run to Edgware or High Barnet. On weekdays the first train leaves Morden at 05:15 and the last at 00:05; from High Barnet the first is at 05:22 and the last at 00:50. In the busiest hour 30 trains leave Morden on weekdays and Fridays, 21 on Saturdays and 20 on Sundays, against 19 from High Barnet on weekdays and Fridays and 16 at weekends. The last Sunday departures are 23:11 from Morden and 00:00 from High Barnet.
On Friday and Saturday nights the Night Tube runs from Edgware and High Barnet to Morden via Charing Cross, so trains run all night from both Morden and High Barnet. There is no overnight service on the Bank branch, to Mill Hill East or to Battersea. Main interchanges are Euston, Warren Street and Stockwell for the Victoria line, Bank for the Central, Waterloo & City lines and DLR, and Tottenham Court Road for the Elizabeth line. See tube times for more.
The trains
Today’s fleet is the 1995 Stock, introduced in the refurbishment that began that year under a public–private partnership deal with Alstom, and automatic train operation has covered the whole line since 1 June 2014. The line has worked through many generations of trains. The City & South London began with small electric locomotives hauling wooden-bodied coaches, judged underpowered, while the Hampstead Tube used Gate Stock, later called 1906 Stock. Both gave way to 1920s Standard Stock, and between 1938 and 1940 a total of 1,121 cars of 1938 Stock were built for the line and its planned extensions. From November 1937 nine-car trains ran between Edgware and Kennington via Charing Cross, with two cars’ doors kept locked at deep-level platforms that were too short, but they were dropped by the start of the war.