Victoria Line

About the Victoria Line

The Victoria line is the fastest and most frequent line on the London Underground, running 21 km from Walthamstow Central in the north-east to Brixton in the south, with trains running every 100 seconds at peak times on some sections. Its 16 stations pass through some of the busiest interchanges in the network - Tottenham Hale, Seven Sisters, Finsbury Park, Highbury & Islington, King's Cross, Euston, Warren Street, Oxford Circus, Green Park, Victoria, Pimlico, Vauxhall, Stockwell, Brixton - making it the spine of north-south travel through central London. The bright blue livery and dedicated tunnel alignment (shared with no other line) allow for its exceptional reliability and speed.

History

The Victoria line was London's first new tube line since the 1940s and opened in stages between 1968 and 1971. It was conceived as a relief line to tackle congestion on the Piccadilly, Jubilee and Northern lines and was notable for being the first Underground line to have automatic train operation - the driver only controls the doors, while computers control acceleration and braking. The line was planned for decades but delayed by postwar austerity; construction began in 1962 and the first section opened between Walthamstow Central and Highbury & Islington in 1968. The Brixton extension opened in 1971.