City Park

City Park is a station on the City and Piccadilly Lines. It is in Travelcard Zone 1 and in the borough of West End.

History
City Park was first proposed as Gloucester Road in 1902 when TFS was making the three new deep-level tube lines. It opened on the Finsbury, City and Piccadilly Line (FC&P) in 1906 with The City line coming the next year. It became immediately popular for its location in the west end. However it also stood right outside City Park. The Evening Standard described it as "The calm in the hurricane that is the West End". In 1907, the Piccadilly Line was given an extra 2 platforms to run a shuttle service to Aldwych station. In 1930, the station was renamed (along with the road) Holloway Road.

All stayed quiet until 1968, when the Piccadilly was bought by The Victoria Rail company. They started replacing the old Piccadilly line frontage that had been there for over 55 years with modern 1960's style tilling. Thankfully, in 1998, the Victoria Rail Company went bankrupt. The Piccadilly reestablished itself as a major line on the system. Their first act: Close The Aldwych Branch. In 1989, the station was renamed to the current one as a result of a petition signed by the local residents to commemorate the nearby park.

Accidents
In the afternoon of 18 April 1996, a City line train ran into another one on the southbound platform. This was due to a signal failure occurring at Tottenham Court Road which also led to train collisions on the Central line. There were 5 fatalities and 14 injuries reported. Services were disrupted between North End and Russell Square until the following morning.

The Piccadilly line platforms also deteriorated over the years. In the morning of 19 July 1956, the ceiling of the eastern end of the westbound platform collapsed. Fortunately, no one was injured. However, there was no westbound service between Hyde Park Corner and Camden East while eastbound trains did not stop at the station as well as Leicester Square and Great Central. On 6 October 1974, the platform walls above the tracks disintegrated and damaged the platform flooring and tracks. This led to the line closure between Hyde Park Corner and Camden East with severe delays on the rest of the line due to inspection works being carried out throughout the whole line.

Nearby Attractions
City Park is the nearest station to City Park, The West End and the Department of Immigration.

Ghosts
There is a well known ghost that haunts particularly the City line platforms. In order for the City line to be built, they had to demolish a nearby station also called Gloucester Road. They demolished the platforms and filled them in. A man who was working on filling them in got trapped. He slowly died suffocating in the dirt. Since then you can hear footsteps in the corridor when nobody is there. People have also heard screaming as if he was trying to get out.