How Covent Garden tube station nearly closed in 1935

As the crowds surge out of Covent Garden tube station today, how many will know that 90 years ago, the station was nearly closed down for being too quiet?

Yet, that’s what nearly happened in 1935 as part of a rationalisation of the Piccadilly line to get rid of underperforming stations and improve the service for the rest of the line. This had already happened with three other stations, at Brompton Road, Down Street and York Road, but the impetus for closing stations in central London came from west London.

The Piccadilly line was going west, with expansions to Hounslow and Uxbridge, and London Transport was looking at how it could improve the performance of the now much longer Piccadilly line.

The issue is that every station added to a line slows down the train journey, as the trains need to decelerate, stop, and speed up again for every station. At the time, it was estimated the closing of Covent Garden would cut the end-to-end journey on the Piccadilly line by about a minute. It is not a huge amount, you might rightly think, and it is not something the average passenger would ever notice.

But, scale it up — each train took just under an hour to run between the two ends of the line at the time. With the other stations closing, the bosses hopped to cut about 5 minutes off the journey time. Over a day means enough time is saved in getting from one end to the other and back again, and they would be able to fit in an extra trip per day.

With 70 trains, the Piccadilly line could increase its daily capacity by about 35,000 passengers.

Not to be sniffed at, and in 1935, this annoyingly quiet station in Covent Garden was getting in the way.

To put it into perspective, Covent Garden station averaged 47,000 passengers per week. At the same time, nearby Leicester Square station handled ten times that number, and Holborn handled just over 200,000 passengers per week.

Part of the reason for Covent Garden being so quiet is because of what it was at the time — not a tourist magnet, but an important fruit and veg market that would close by the middle of the morning. The rest of the area wasn’t filled with expensive shops, but mainly light industry. Although the Royal Opera House was there, that was mainly an evening venue — during the day, the area around Covent Garden was quiet.

With Leicester Square station being rebuilt to replace the old lifts with faster escalators, serious consideration was being given to closing Covent Garden entirely.

The two stations on either side, Holborn and Leicester Square, are close enough to Covent Garden that it was felt that it would be acceptable for people to walk the extra distance. In fact, until recently, the Northern and Piccadilly lines recommended that people walk from Leicester Square or Holborn and avoid the overcrowded Covent Garden.

But in 1935, crowds were the least of its worries, and closure was imminent.

But then Covent Gardens cancellation was itself cancelled.

A number of factors seemed to coalesce to save it. Most of the time savings from closing the other stations had already been achieved, and not much more would be gleaned from closing Covent Garden. However, it does seem likely that the Opera House played a part, as nothing is likely to cause problems for an organisation with a plan than telling rich folk with plenty of time on their hands to write angry letters that their local tube station is about to close.

They weren’t quite so powerful as to persuade London Transport to open the station at weekends, though. Complaints soon emerged that the enlarged Leicester Square station was overcrowded, and it would help to open Covent Garden at weekends to relieve the pressure.

Today, it’s the other way round!

Piccadilly line train diagram with Covent Garden overcrowding warning (c) TfL CLD archive

Covent Garden station was also often closed in the evenings if the opera house wasn’t doing anything. One notable exception was 12th May 1937 – when the newly crowned King George VI spoke by radio to the nation and the opera house played his message inside the auditorium — and the public was allowed to attend in mere lounge suits instead of evening dress. Gasp!

The station, so often closed in the evenings, soon became a lot busier as a wartime shelter. In fact, it was the first station to issue “season tickets” to regulars who used it as a shelter, with reserved places on the platforms for them each evening. That soon spread to more stations until most of the Underground was issuing them.

In 1938, a review of which stations could be upgraded with escalators ruled out Covent Garden. Although passenger numbers were up, from an average of 47,000 a week in 1935 to 57,000 a week in 1938, it was nothing like enough to justify the cost of adding escalators. And to this day, they still have lifts.

However, let’s play a game of what if…

What if 90 years ago, Covent Garden station had closed? By the 1980s, as the old market and the area around it were redeveloped, the clamour to reopen the old station would have increased.

With most of the station still there, just disused, it would have been relatively easy to refurbish and reopen it once again. However, there might have been enough pressure to avoid reusing the lifts and replacing them with escalators. Escalators are built on a slope, so the entrance to the station would have to move sideways — and it’s quite likely that the new Covent Garden tube station would be where the Apple store is today.

And with escalators, the station wouldn’t be anything as crowded as it is with lifts.

So, closing a station in 1935 because it was too quiet could have inadvertently made it much nicer to use today. But it limped on and managed to survive with lifts until the tourists arrived — and now, far from being too quiet, it’s too busy.