Whatever Happened to the Fleet Line? 

“London transport actually stopped advertising the opening date because it was getting embarrassing…” *ahem, crossrail, crossrail, cough cough*

I can never see name Jubilee without remembering how my youngest daughter, only about 5 years old at the time, read the signs as Jubbly - lovely jubbly

A very interesting history Lesson. And that last dad pun, "snatching victory..." had me groaning in delight. 😂

"they stopped advertising the opening, cause it was getting embarrassing" Plus ca change? Looking at you Elizabeth line

That interchange at Westminster always makes me feel I'm stepping into an Escher drawing

In 1977, my family and I were among the waves of tourists coming to London. It was our first trip to England, and my brother and I were still little enough to travel at significantly cheaper fares. We still have our little Silver Jubilee jackets, and I still have my scratchy lurex Silver Jubilee socks. We spent a week in London, and then Dad rented a car, and drove us throughout southern England. In 1979, we spent a week in London, en route to a conference in Vilach, Austria, where Dad was a featured speaker. But we didn't ride the Jubilee Line, because it hadn't opened yet.

"Victory from the jaws of de-fleet". Sheer bloody poetry! We had a street party for the Silver Jubilee. It was good. I was very young at the time.

Everyone's praising the "jaws of de Fleet" pun, and rightly so, but I just want to take a moment and point with a knowing smile at "Cutler very obviously had the knives out for them."

Brilliant, just brilliant, "Jaws of Defleet" will definitely feature in future conversations!

"it was stuck between two Poles" *me as a Pole looking on confused*

Victory from the jaws of defleet. So bad it is the best pun of the week.

As a backpacking Aussie visiting London in 1979, I was bemused by all the controversy over NOT naming the new line the Fleet Line. It seems there were signs and other forms of written protest everywhere. Perhaps the cleverest of all was by someone who penned "Fleet Line? Don't Jubilee-ve it!".

7:49 I'm guessing Jago wrote that line at 3 a.m. after having been working for 18 hours.

"Cutler, very obviously had the knives out for them..." (03:28) Like it, Mr Hazzard, that made me laugh. Nice one. The only things I liked about 1977, were Punk, 'Star Wars', and 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind'. Oh, and two ice lollies made for the Jubilee, by Lyons Maid and Walls. Never really 'got' the whole idea about royalty, myself.

That final victory pun was just beautiful!

I use the Jubilee line every day and go past West Hampstead. At 2.18 there is a southbound pulling in at West Hampstead and just above the train is the word 'runchy' spray painted on the wall 5 times in a row. I have no idea what it means, but whenever I go past, I count all the runchys. After writing this, I realised that I now seem incredibly weird but I must put this out there

Having been offline for a few weeks, what better way to get “back in the game”, than with one of your info and dry humor packed videos 😉

'Flleet Street, London's street of shame...' -yet again I was drawn in by the trains, stayed for the social history, and left with a stack of one-liners I wish I'd written... Mr Hazzard, you are enviably and devilishly good at this.

From my memory at the time, escalators were the problem. At the time, there were only so many new escalators to go round and London Transport had the choice to open either the Jubilee Line or the Heathrow extension , and rightly chose the latter, which opened in 1977. The jubilee line just shadowed the Bakerloo line at the time, whereas the Heathrow extension was transformative. Before, passengers had the schlep their luggage up stairs and onto the A1 bus in the forecourt.

The Fleet Line Station in Canon Street is nearly complete now - it has reappeared as the new entrance to Bank Station in Canon Site. The Site of the station box was preserved so could be used for the new ticket hall. I'm surprised the costs were only £50k I remember going to the stores in the old tram depot in Acton hunting for some equipment that had been removed from a 60TS train. The stores had a the Fleet Line enamelled signs that had been manufactured and were heading for the scrap bin. In some cases at interchange stations the enamelled line diagrams had 'Jubilee Line' plates riveted over the Fleet line connections. I wonder how many of these there are still on stations today ? There is also a long story about the Fleet line ATO / ATP - that was going to be an upgrade to the Victoria Line with 4 speeds - however the signal engineers had not consulted the rolling stock engineers on how these 4 speeds were going to be achieved in the days before electronic traction equipment. Spent a long time experimenting with how to get 4 stable speeds out of a train with camshaft traction control. It did not go well, we had far too many operations of the camshaft as the train went faster than the desired speed and then cut the power to the motors and when the speed fell re-apply the power resulting in another camshaft operation. We tried only using one, two, three or 4 sets of motors but while better that did not work well enough.

That BDT van outside Fenchurch Street station must have clocked up dozens of parking tickets, as it has not moved for weeks.

I dated the niece of Horace Cutler. She never really spoke highly of him! Horace's father built many of the 30's style housing in "Metro-land". All that identikit housing in Edgware, Kingsbury and Rayners Lane? Cutler housing.

"Snatched victory from the jaws of da fleet". Brilliant. Your videos are always worth waiting for.

About the renaming, should have used the headline about Johnson renaming Crossrail (a National Rail route) to the Elizabeth Line, treating it as a Tube line, when he was Mayor of London. Just like Horace Cutler, it was done as a publicity stunt. Sadiq Khan is planning to name the individual London Overground routes, as it’s becoming a network in its own right, to avoid confusion.

I’m pretty sure the Bakerloo line wasn’t named after a company but was named so because it originally went between Baker St. and Waterloo

On my first visit to Britain, in 1977, the Fleet line was news. On later visits, I wondered what happened to it, and found out. Thanks, as ever, for another great video.

I’ve more! London Underground uses LCS codes (Location Coding System) to identify track and structures on its railway. Codes for structures on the Northern Line start with N, for the Central line they start with C etc. As I remember, the original Baker Street to Charing Cross structures all have a LCS code beginning with F, for Fleet Line, these codes are still used heavily today. On the extension to Stratford which came later they begin with J. By 1977 this F code was on so many engineering drawings that it was impossible to change.

9 minute build up to that punch line. Worth every minute.

I do remember as a child seeing new metal maps on the Northern Line platforms with the interchanges for the Fleet Line marked - including an indication for one at Bank which was where it would have crossed the Bank branch. They had to rivet corrections over the top!

I'd always taken the colour to be silver, in reference to the Silver Jubilee. I also wonder if LT may have been keen to avoid anything that might recall the Daimler Fleetline bus, or DMS as LT called it, about which they were not particularly over the moon

Jubilee is a great name. I remember going to London in the early seventies and shocked by the state of the tube. No investment. Dreadful stations. Extremely dirty. I remember reading in the 1990’s it would take fifty years to modernise it and bring up to scratch. I remember in 1986 I travelled on the Underground and two day’s later on the Tokyo Metro. It was like comparing a tent to a mansion. I have been so happy to see the Underground improve over this century.

Regarding the renaming from Fleet to Jubilee, I moved to London in 1983 and I regularly saw the line diagrams on some Circle Line trains with an interchange at Baker Street to the Fleet Line, at least 4 years after the Jubilee Line had opened. I wish I'd taken a photo now.

My first March Break trip was to London in 1977 with my school, I didn't realise it coincided with the Silver Jubilee year, maybe this is the reason we heard the authorities were relocating the homeless.

"fleeting event" Love it. Good job Jago.

"Cutler had the knives out", yes very good Jago. Your coat is waiting by the door.

At the time of the renaming shenanigans I was a young teenager and something of a Tube geek. I have a memory (or perhaps a dream?) that there was a an informal campaign against altering the name from Fleet which went along the lines(!) of "Don't Jubelivee it". It did have a certain ring to it, and I quickly subscribed to the notion. Does anyone else recall this, or am I making it up? I honestly don't know. On another matter; do Tube maps with the proposed Fleet line visible as under construction have any great value given what transpired? I don't own one, but am just wondering.

The 'tunnelling' and station construction for Bond street seemed to go on for years (8?). They used the open cast method, and dug a massive hole in oxford street, pedestrians walking on narrow elevated wooded walkways. I very much resented the jubilee trains replacing the old but luxury bakerloo trains on the stanmore branch. Those red carriages with wood and varnish, cream interiors and soft lighting were gorgeous. The jubilee trains were aluminium cans in comparison.

Thank you for a delightful example of British cynicism, within a truly important historical document. Much appreciated. Mike

I was in London in the spring of 1977 as a teenager; I remember the tube map listing the Fleet line as under-construction. By the way, I remember the jubilee madness; in my box of childhood memories, I still have a bus ticket, from those machines that held a roll of paper and the conductor would rotate a handle and issue a ticket of the appropriate value, and the reverse of the ticket had a jubilee theme! The next spring we went to London again on vacation, and it had been renamed to Jubilee. It was still under construction, of course. At the time, I had assumed that the name change made sense, it's good to finally find out about the exact politics that led to it. I can just imagine Sir Humphrey arguing for *and* against the name change :)

Great video, love the slightly more relaxed style. Would love to see more videos on the GLC/LCC and history of London government

Pun-tastic, thanks for being an awesome guest!

A fleeting tale from the tube

I remember the campaign stickers inside the cars which read "Fleet Line? Don't Jubilee've it."

theres a place in london called jubilee park, but london wouldnt really notice it anyways

"Snatch victory from the jaws of defleet". These videos just get better and better.

10/10 use of the phrase "absolute madlad".

Imagine saying “yeah I gotta take the fleet line” .. Whewww what absolute scenes 😂😂😂 this was awesome! Thanks!!!!

Thanks for your hard work, wit and humor. I appreciate your efforts.

Cutler had the knives out. They do that, don't they? 😀

Ooof!!. Victory from.the jaws of de fleet. That was dreadful. Lol. But good video as always, so you are ( nearly) forgiven. And saying the knives were out with Mr Cutler...I see what you did there.

Am I the only person who when seeing you with a new video drops everything they are doing to make sure they see the new video?

To further muddy the waters.... Horace Cutler entered local government in 1952 when he was elected as a councillor to Harrow Council. 1977, following the Tory GLC election win under his leadership, marked HIS silver jubilee in local government. This, rather than the minor matter of the Queen's accession to the throne, is the real reason for re-naming the Fleet Line as the Jubilee Line.

Sir Horace Cutler became Leader of the Conservative group on the GLC in 1974; he only became Leader of the GLC when the Conservatives won the 1977 election. I've got a copy of the Marshall Report into the future of the GLC - it's a very interesting document given the big debate on GLC abolition which opened up in 1983.

perfect name. Always loved coming to London 1977 and seeing Her Majesty on Whitehall. Highlight of my youth. Will never forget that moment.

"Cutler get his knives out" ... pun intended?

Jaws of de-FLEET! (chuckle chortle) Love your sense of humour Jago, I really do!

How truly informative. It ties in with the fleet of other Fleet related videos. I always thought it was Silver for the Jubilee. Such was how things dribbled down to us kids in 1977 what with only three channels. I think we got a school holiday too. There were street parties, just like the end of WW2, and the Coronation, even in Scotland, where Edinburgh painted two buses silver. I'm sorry- any mention of Cutler and I think of Ivor Bicarbonate of Chicken, Life in a Scotch Sitting Room Vol 2 Cutler. [ In Scotland the pillar boxes don't carry the E II R crest and in fact have the Scottish Crown and no monarch's initials nor number ( it was OK for E VII R, G V R, E VIII R(*) and G VI R as they're all over the place but the Scottish Nationalists had just nicked the Stone of Scone aka The Stone of Destiny (The Scone of Stone? The Scone of Dysentery?) and feelings were still sensitive to the idea that Elizabeth was only the First in Scotland, and the first First Elizabeth had cut the Scottish Queen's head off. (*) There's at least 3 Edward the 8th pillar boxes in Scotland; 2 in Tobermory, 1 in Glasgow. There's about 160 left in the UK. I can vouch for 2 in Birmingham. ]

At the time many Fleet line adverts were grafitied with the words " Fleet Line , dont you Jubilee've it !"

Always wondered why there isn't a route along the Strand. Same annoyance from Knightsbridge straight west. Stations: - Royal Albert Hall (Change for Museums and Embassy sieges.) - High St. Ken (District & Circle) - Holland Park South (for Earl's Crt Rd, Design Museum) - Kensington Olympia (Overground) - Brook Green - Hammersmith (re-join the Picc. westbound.) Obviously the Piccadilly Line, with an additional route option, like the Northern at Camden Town.

Hello, Jago. I cannot recall if you ever picked up on the trial tunnel that was built in south east london for the fleet line in the 70’s. The tunnel was only a few hundred metres long and was built with a bentonite shield, which was a new type of tunnelling machine at that time?

Another great video! I also you on the podcast…you were great!

Yet another fleeting look in to the underground.

I think even without the subsequent rerouting, and even though the way in which the name was chosen was a bit daft, with the benefit of hindsight “Jubilee Line” is far superior to “Fleet Line”.

"...from the jaws of de-fleet." We need someone to collect all of these Jago-isms.

I recently stumbled across your channel and very glad I did. Great videos and superb narration. Bravo, Old Cake, bravo. 👏🏻

Wonderful as always Mr Hazzard

3:01 that's essentially Amtrack or Deutsche Bahn today lol.

I was relieved when the announcement was being on the podcast. I had a bit of a heart murmur at the beginning when you referred to it. I thought "Please dont leave RU-vid for a hiatus, you arent allowed holidays..."

The ending of this video reminds me of the ending of one of the episodes of Peabody's Improbable History on The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show. Ouch! :)

Come on, own up! Who was it in LT that forgot to change the colour of the line from silver to gold in 2002?

I must say that I was underwhelmed by the special announcement (although that’s really down to RU-vid revealing the surprise a few days ago). I was so hoping for a guest appearance by Michael Portillo carrying that out of date book.

"Cutler very obviously had the knives out." 😆🤣😆🤣😆

If you're going to talk about time travel, I hope Geoff Marshall does a video on how you can save a quid by travelling to the Renaissance via the Neolithic.

"A fleeting event". I love you.

I know this video is almost 2 years old, but I have to say watching it today and hearing your comment at 5:05 gave me a laugh. I just read an article about how TfL will be allocating £4 million to naming the 6 Overground lines. Speaking of, is there any chance you could do a history of the Overground and how the line came to be (assuming you haven't done one already!)?

Snatching victory from the claws of de fleet... Oh dear - a new low on the Tony Blackburn Book of Jokes-o-meter!

The video would have been longer, but you know... time is fleeting. I loved the "da fleet" joke BTW :D

DaFleat. Dropped my coffee.... Thanks , Jago!

GREAT, LIGHT HEARTED, AND GOOD HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY LESSONS.

Video on Ezra Street in Bethnal Green possible in the future? Looks like a street straight out the 50s

There was originally going to be a station at St Catherine's Dock.

Lord forbid we name anything after anyone but the current sovereign. Heck, even Meghan's new baby is Lillibet.

What a midweek treat, superb as ever jago.

Sadiq Khan makes Horace Cutler look like a model of paragon of virtue.

Thank you once again . excelent use of such imaginative puns . I can hardly breathe!!!

Actually only the district and met lines were named after the companies that built them, for example bakerloo is called bakeloo because it was first built between baker street and waterloo and the name bakerloo is a colloquial term that fell into common use.

Were those wasted Horace Cutler sandwiches somehow spirited onto buffet cars leaving London's railway terminals? I often wondered at the time how such curly, dry bread and sweaty cheese could have come about!

Phew, I've already heard the podcast. When he said he had an announcement I nearly sharted thinking Jago would tell us he had opened a portal to Phantom London and would descend to fight the spirit of Charles Yerkes and may be gone for some time.

A punch reference with punchy in the shot. Surely not a coincidence.

That was a fleeting chance you took with that pun at the end!

Soooooooo there's another place I can listen to Jago and others talking ( I imagine) both reverently and irrelevantly about trains. Well that's an hour or two of this week accounted for.

Guessing that like possessions, names are always Fleeting.

The best thing about this video is the noise of the 96 stock motors. Never remove it, TfL. Just get new stock with the exact same noise.

They snatched victory from the jaws of the Fleet ... Arrrrrrrrrgh

Maps! I have to say, I love watching many of your videos but I've realised I have the same feeling many times throughout them when trying to piece together a history of a line, and that is I could really use a map to illustrate your point. I fi nd myself trying to go through the current tube map and imagine the old stations/lines and attempting, but often failing to make sense of what you've described in a video. Even something crude would be amazing - especially in a video like this or the one where you talked about Aldgate East moving and another station being removed.

Truly painful pun at the end. 😆

Residents of Jubilee Road are grateful for your qualifier. We'd hate to live somewhere that doesn't exist.

Maybe the Jubilee Line should of been called Millennium Line. As I was thinking of the Millennium Line. And it could of been extended to London City Airport from North Greenwich.

fascinating story I loved it, especially the occasional poke at the politicos of the day

Of course the Stanmore to Charing Cross section already existed. My father took it daily when we lived in London in the late 1960s. At that point, it was still a section of the Bakerloo line.