Opening
The first section to be opened was between Walthamstow Central and Highbury & Islington. There was no initial opening ceremony: instead the normal timetable started on Sunday 1 September 1968. The first train left Walthamstow Central for Highbury & Islington at about 6.30 am. Later that year, the section between Highbury & Islington and Warren Street was opened, again without ceremony.
The official opening ceremony took place at Victoria station on 7 March 1969: Queen Elizabeth II unveiled a commemorative plaque on the station concourse. After a short ceremony, Her Majesty bought a 5d ticket (five old pence = 2.08p) and travelled to Green Park.
Princess Alexandra opened the Brixton extension on 23 July 1971, making a journey from Brixton to Vauxhall. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh had previously visited the line during its construction: in July 1968, they visited tunnel workings under Vauxhall Park.
Read more about this topic: Victoria Line
Famous quotes containing the word opening:
“With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“The current of our thoughts made as sudden bends as the river, which was continually opening new prospects to the east or south, but we are aware that rivers flow most rapidly and shallowest at these points.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Heavens. Once an object of superstition, awe and fear. Now a vast region for growing knowledge. The distance of Venus, the atmosphere of Mars, the size of Jupiter, and the speed of Mercury. All this and more we know. But their greatest mystery the heavens have kept a secret. What sort of life, if any, inhabits these other planets? Human life, like ours? Or life extremely lower in the scale. Or dangerously higher.”
—Richard Blake, and William Cameron Menzies. Narrator, Invaders from Mars, at the opening of the movie (1953)