History
The Metropolitan Railway first opened a station in Uxbridge on 4 July 1904 on Belmont Road, a short distance to the north of the existing station. The station was situated on a different track alignment, now used as sidings. The original service from central London was provided by steam-drawn trains but electrification took place the following year.
The London United Tramways extension from Shepherds Bush was opened a few weeks before the underground station: the manager, as reported in a local newspaper at the time, commented on the high prices of the underground journey: the tram journey, though, took well over an hour to reach Shepherds Bush.
On 1 March 1910, an extension of the District line from South Harrow to connect with the Metropolitan Railway at Rayners Lane was opened, enabling District line trains to serve stations between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge. The original Belmont Road station had two platforms, and after the introduction of shared operation one platform was used by each line.
On 23 October 1933 District line services to Uxbridge were replaced by Piccadilly line trains.
On 4 December 1938 the current station was opened on a new alignment.
The London Borough of Hillingdon announced in June 2011 that it would be lobbying Transport for London to have the Central line extended from West Ruislip station to Uxbridge. Such a project would require a business case approved by TfL and the completion of signal upgrade work on the Metropolitan line.
Read more about this topic: Uxbridge Tube Station
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“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.”
—Pierre Bayle (1647–1706)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)